I played it. It is done in a an extremely respectful and informative way, and can actually help a lot with educating mass audience. Please don't just hate it blindly.

Eleven years ago, during the swine flu pandemic: This stuff seems to be new to a lot of people here, but it's a pretty old idea that you can make games about topical and/or sensitive topics: trying to survive as a dirt poor person in the third world, or whatever. Back when people used to debate whether games can be art, and whether games would ever achieve comparable cultural status to cinema, it seemed like a natural maturation of the medium that we'd have games covering the same sort of topics as news reports and documentaries and docudramas. Though when people have actually tried it's typically been on the fringes of the industry, so the games aren't necessarily good qua games and preservation of them as historical artefacts is rather lacking.

This game I've no idea about. I mean, it's not as though the reviews are illuminating. I can't speak for the devs and have no idea about their motives or their competence. But there is a genre history here.

Can we please be reasonable here? Coronavirus is a nasty disease but it is certainly not bubonic plague. Even in severely affected countries less than 0.6% of population have had it, and for the majority of them the symptoms were mild. We need precaution and extra care to deal with this, of course, but reading posts like yours makes it look like we are living through the end of the world.

519th (with an upwards trend) on the list of current bestsellers.
Glad at least a few people don't seem to be offended and just take it as what it is - a video game.
Dealing with a controversial subject, but still just a video game.

I kind of think the release of this game is kind of a social experiment...

I'm on the fence myself... it seems rushed, and inappropiate. On the other hand I see games as art, and art can of course comment, play with, reflect on contemporary events.

What I do think is - the game should have been released for free - with a "pay/donate what you want" attached that has a fair split between the devs and some really independent health organization, or maybe the WHO to make it more independent from big $$$.

Maybe the should have gone more metaphor - not use the COVID name (which should be SARS-COV2 anyway, since COVID is not the infection, but the resulting lung disease). They could have called it "the pandemic", or something else. Maybe have it take place on an alien planet with alien life forms. The educational effect would be the same.

Lastly the game claims "the game provides the players with information on how to behave in the event of an epidemic, what actions to take, and how to protect themselves and their loved ones in the most effective way. The game is based on the data published by WHO and on the information acquired from experts and consultants."
The problem with that is that none of this is set in stone. Experts (I mean real experts, not YT- "experts") are still very much in disagreement about which measures were/are effective. The "truth" changes daily. Mouth protection is everything between useless or the ultimate salvation, depending on who you ask. Opening schools and businesses is fine or doom. Certain medications are the salvation or pure poison. A rushed, barely tested vaccine will save us all, or kill us all. Those are all standpoint from people with serious medical and scientific degrees, some even with Nobel prize fames.
And now a game that tries to educate "right behaviour"? Will it get daily updates?

I do think the devs and GOG mean well, so please cut down on the hate.But I'd rather have Plague Inc. finally on GOG, and I think it'd be more educational on how pandemics work.

This is what completely pisses me off!

People are completely okay with games about murders, drugs, cannibalism, anything, as long as it doesn't affect them personally. Around 750 000 people die each year because of drugs, yet they aren't angry at Drug Dealer Simulator. Bunch of hypocrites.

Can't wait for the NWO expansion, I want that Billy-Gates' miracle vaccine!

Will the CCP be getting any of the profit from the net sales too? Asking for my friend Tedros, who really loves them.

Sorry, that's just hysterical. The game certainly isn't about individual people.
With that reasoning you could claim every game about any current conflict should be banned, because real people are dying for real in those conflicts. That would include all Civ games btw. I always crushed Spain pretty early - in real Spain real people died in wars - let's ban Civ?

That already came out May 15th. If you missed it - bad luck, you're not part of the NWO. Didn't you get the memo?

Game page is not loading properly?

Do you have any sources for that? If I got that right the Swedes estimate somewhere above 10% of their population was exposed to the virus at some point. In Heinsberg, a region badly affected here, a study suggests around 15% of people were exposed.

Of course if your numbers are actually right, then that would make it a significantly more deadly disease.

^This. The COVID pandemic is a serious matter for everyone, no question about that, but so is WWII and every other (major or minor) war that came before it, yet i don't see anyone bashing war games here... Anyway, probably this game isn't my cup of tea, but i'm sure it'll find a niche.

Sweden is just a bad example. Local authorities are basically ignoring COVID so it's no wonder their stats are so bad.

It's not easy to interpret all the statistics on this topic, but if you go to worldometers.info/coronavirus and sort by the number of total cases per 1M pop, then leaving places like San Marino and Qatar aside, the top values are close to 6000 people per million, which translates to 0.6%. In Sweden it's currently 3614, for instance.

Now, I don't think this is the same number as what you quote, because (I guess) it refers to hospitalizations or similar cases when a diagnosis was given, while the number you mention is probably based on approximate estimates including the people who never went to hospitals.

Nah, didn't get the pre-order madness memo. So sad, was really looking forward to unleashing a Boogaloo on my fellow countrymen.