Back when the pandemic first started here in the states, it began a whole new societal shift. The stay at home order caused us to stay locked down and tend to our own personal devices. In hindsight, we probably thought this was a good time to start more self care, and little did we know, that we would actually miss seeing and being around other people. Around this time last year, there was a huge boom in online gaming, or just interest in gaming in general. A lot of folks popularized the game Animal Crossing as an escape from the stresses of our lock down order and tried to find virtual ways to connect with one another. Our guests today were part of that original discussion a year ago. Though gaming was and is still a big part of their lifestyle regardless of the pandemic, we would like to get their thoughts on how they think the culture of gaming has continued to evolve because of the pandemic, or have the hype died down for those casual gamers?
In this episode, we catch up with our guests who joined us on a conversation over a year ago, and discussed the topic of gaming as a hobby or an escape from the stresses of the pandemic. Overall, it was a great episode because we were able to get a different perspective on how the pandemic has been for them, and how they feel about the state of gaming as it generated a lot of hype around the 2nd quarter of the year 2020.
Throughout this episode, we talk about how the hype appears over for casual gamers, but for the avid gamer, the pandemic has caused a plethora of games to appear regularly. Some opinions are that the gaming industry took advantage of the hype and the stay-at home orders, and began to pump out too many games. The cause is a domino effect: gamers can't keep up with the new games being put out, and developers appear to be in a never-ending competition to one-up other developers. This causes a saturated market, and for the avid gamers, this causes them to have a short attention span.
In the end, gaming industry and the gaming culture has been around and established far longer than the pandemic's hype. For casual gamers, or those who weren't gamers prior to the pandemic, either took up new hobbies or moved on from it shortly after the hype had dissipated. For the avid gamers, the culture of gaming continues, and they are looking forward to more of its advances. For most, the pandemic didn't change much of their views on the gaming culture, and for some others, though gaming may not be their preferred hobby of choice, it definitely provided them with an option to escape when needed.
Real Talk is a production of ZTS Collective.
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