I haven't played it. It may very well be great. Being made in such a short amount of time it seems it could be nothing more than trying to cash in on a timely topic.

No you mean you wanted to profit off of the deaths of other people. As someone who had Covid I can clearly say you are horrible people.

Saying "We are giving 20% of the profit away" does NOT mean it is NOT a cash grab. It only means you are hoping by doing that you will sell MORE copies & make MORE MONEY & look less horrible than you do in my opinion.

Very disgusting reply. you should be ashamed to even think of making a game about the pandemic. what about the people who have died because of this/ dont you care? of course you dont, you just want to profit off of a crisis.
"Never let a crisis go to waste"

Go to hell!

big LOL. Raise awareness? Do you honestly think that people who are capable of getting onto this site don't know about a global pandemic that almost literally everyone in the world knows about? Get real. "we are donating 20% of our sales " Oh nice, so you're only grabbing 80% of the cash, good to know. How long did it take you guys to slap this excuse of a game together? 3 months? Or did you just reskin some crappy pandemic clone you were working on?

By the way, give up with the super obvious, unverified owner sockpuppets giving this game 5 stars. It isn't working, it isn't going to work and the only people who genuinely like this game that do actually own it, are probably edgelords and/or contrarians.

To answer OP. Yes, this is a cash grab.

Good lord some of you are overly angry people. You get your panties up in a wad over a simulation game. There are a few on steam that are pretty lame covid games. This one could use a few options as i've noted like options to purposely spread the virus through misinformation, embezzlement, do nothing ignore action, and a option to just set it and let the clock run on doing just a particular action. Its not bad at all for a short developement.

As to personal issue; yeah we've all been affected and some worse than others but some of you people sound like weak willed louts wanting to blame anything and everything that offends you. Well, STFU and deal with it like the rest of us. If you have no constructive input and didn't purchase the gane why bother posting. If it offends you... tough tits. Grow a pair you windbag of negativity.

Maybe not entirely uninteresting…..
CEPI was founded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
You don't need a game to find out about Covid 19, the internet is enough for that.

Ok. Fuck that. Gates notoriously paralyzed thousands of indian children with his failed polio vaccine. That should merit for lawsuits and arrest

Yes exactly

well to tell you the truth I got my flu shots and im still kickin.

It's can be quite subjective as to what emotions are conveyed through text on an internet forum. That said, I would say that none of us are overly angry. As a side note I don't wear panties because I'm a guy. I do wear boxer shorts though (black ones atm) and they don't tend to get in a wad, unless I'm stuck on a bus or somewhere hot where it's invariably crowded or difficult to adjust them in.

We have all been affected to varying degrees, naturally enough. I can't say what type people the others who have expressed a similar sentiment to mine are, but I know I'm no "weak willed lout" and I doubt they are too. That said I haven't bothered reading about this game on any game journalism-esque sites since, I would imagine there's plenty of weak willed louts there pissing and moaning and I don't have time for that.

The problem I have (and the problem I imagine the others have) is that this was rushed out to cash in on the news of the virus. If they at least admitted to this, instead of hiding behind the farce of "rasing awareness" and donating a mere 20% of profits (only for May and June) to charity.

First of all, the raising awareness thing is utter nonsense, there isn't a need to discuss this, everyone who uses this site likely has enough awareness of the outside world to know about this pandemic, end of.

The thing that gets me is they've said that they're donating 20% of the profits during May and June to charity. That's nice, I don't know how well the game is going to sell but I think it's safe to say it's not going to be a massive hit or anything. Whatever the case, it's the thought that matters so I'll give them that.

HOWEVER. Their message says that they'll be donating the 20% from May and June. This game came out on the 29th of May. The 20% may not be from 2 months of sales, but instead from 3 days of May and the month of June.

They're a professional company and unless they'd like to clarify that the 20% donation will be coming from the entirety of May, it looks extremely sneaky on their end. If they have clarified it, it isn't easily visible. I'm not saying that this was their intention, but combining that with the fact that they are very clearly exploiting the outbreak to make money from the game (any controversy probably helps too, but I think that talking about it in a not all that widely used discussion forum isn't going to help them out).

For all I know, they game could be great fun, I'm not criticizing the game itself. The practices of this company, despite any apparent intentions are extremely uncouth. I understand that there is a lot of outrage and bullshit regarding being offended by games, especially these days, some of it is justified and some of it isn't (either due to being overly sensitive, digging up old irrelevant crap from a different time in some bid to fix modern problems by blaming it). I think it's fair to say that a lot of genuine offences people can have with games gets buried under ones that, to me seem to be made by people who as you have put it perfectly, "have their panties in a wad" over silly things.

I will say that I am not one of these easily offended people, I'm fine with most things that aren't outright terrible (like clearly underaged characters in hentai games). I thought the blood in the modern Doom games was disgusting and too much but if people enjoy it, so be it, good for them. I have no problem with them or the developers because nothing is being exploited there.

I have no problem with you personally, if you enjoy the game, that's fine, this isn't a personal attack on you. I understand that I mentioned people who liked this game in my previous post as being edgelords or contrarians and I regret that as it wasn't a fair or nice thing to say.

This company seems to be exploiting the pandemic, that is what I have a problem with and I imagine it's what the others have an issue with. I don't know if the developers/publishers are there, twirling their moustaches in delight over exploiting a pandemic, or if they simply didn't think to try and approach this with a bit more tact. They don't appear to be trying very hard to make theirselves look innocent and getting bullshit statements about raising awareness straight from them doesn't help either.

That's about it. I understand that game forums are a haven (at least from all I've seen over the years) for people bitching and complaining about a game they don't like but this isn't the case on my end. If the developers hadn't posted specifically here I wouldn't have bothered in the first place. However since they have and the possibility of them perhaps realizing why some of us have a problem with the way they're doing this and least giving us some sort of response to it is there, I did post.

Whatever the case I hope you're keeping safe during this, that's about it from me Sorry for the essay!

I don't think I've left my prison er house since November. I can't confirm i had this in Nov but high delerious fever with bone rattling chills at the same time (paradox that be), endless coughing using blood. That did lessen in december and the coughing did finally end near end of January. No test though so I guess i didn't have it.

I went a little overboard on a rant and I should just leave it to the potential consumer to judge. Its an ok game I just casually run atm. Maybe the clicky sounds and gfx interface grabbed me the most. I read it was in development since 2017 and was going to be under a different name. So perhaps this current epidemic was taken advantage of. I suppose a better option would have been a whole catalog of viruses or a "name your virus." It has used various events from media and countries and some information floating around the science community. I can't say how accurate it is.

At least some money is donated. Some is better than none. Maybe it raises awareness in so much as to react.

Now, I've moved onto other games since the summer sale hit. I do hope the game gets more patches and expanded content. Perhaps it will move beyond this.

Cheers.

This a 100% !

Yeah, imagine playing a military first person shooter taking place in Afghanistan while your own brother is actually fighting there and possibly being killed in action.
No video game company would dare produce such an outrageous piece of trash and no one would play it, even enjoy it, for sure... Oh, wait...

The hypocrisy is astounding.

I'm not saying the developers were right to create a game based upon the actual COVID-19 pandemic. That is not my point.

My opinion is that the people offended by this game being "too real and opportunistic" - which it could very much be - should also take a long hard look at their backlog and start deleting all the games dealing with "problematic real world issues" and realistic violence.

This is a simulation game. It should not be political. But I do want to make a serious point. Simulation games are used in real world situations too to train people for specific things. I am a simulation gamer fan. I play medium complexity city sims, business sims, war sims and adventure sims. Believe it or not, the concepts of resource management and offense/defense do apply to the real world. At work (retail job) we do stockpile, we do resource management when we hire/fire people and buy/stock/sell products. Some features like ban public gatherings in this simulation does make sense and in the real world does apply. A lot of things done in a sim can be used in real life. It's not like this game shows you how to kill, it's the opposite, it's about how to survive.

Plus some younger players may be convinced enough to actually take these measures from the game seriously and apply it in real life.

Yes this game is supposed to make money for the developer, but let's not get too offended. Don't forget a lot of people are out of work and everyone needs to put food on the table and a roof over the head of themselves and their families.