The power of data in gaming’s red-hot market Learn how to seize the power of data to attract and keep players, create personalized gaming experiences, and cash in on the industry’s seismic growth. Register Now Razer reported last week that it hit $ 1.2 billion in 2020 revenues, up 48% from a year earlier. It […]
Tag: Pandemic
They laughed, they cried, they killed monsters: How friendships thrived in video games during the pandemic
For someone who is hours away from his family, living alone on a college campus without in-person classes, and who infrequently sees a friend in the flesh, Hugh-Jay Yu has an impressively active social life. Every night between 7 p.m. and 2 a.m., the 19-year old college sophomore in Evanston, Ill., hangs out with a […]
Your phone’s home screen shows how a year of pandemic changed you
Farewell Uber, Open Table and apps for airlines I no longer fly. Hello DoorDash, Zoom and apps for picking wine to drink at home. As politicians and newspapers won’t let you forget, it has now been a whole year since the coronavirus first turned us into pandemic hermits. One less-obvious way to measure how your […]
Companies That Rode Pandemic Boom Get a Reality Check
Investors, who flocked to companies like Zoom as the virus spread, have started to look elsewhere. While the pandemic battered the economy, tech companies and consumer companies powered by digital technology stood out as islands of growth. But with coronavirus cases and deaths falling, more than two million Americans a day getting vaccinations and the […]
A couple clings to shared past amid a memory-wiping pandemic in Little Fish
Olivia Cooke and Jack O’Connell star as a young couple struggling to stay together as a memory-wiping virus spreads unchecked in Little Fish. A young couple fights to hold its relationship together in the midst of pandemic, where a memory loss virus is robbing everyone of their memories in Little Fish, a new science fiction […]
SuperData: Games grew 12% to $139.9 billion in 2020 amid pandemic
The game industry grew 12% to $ 139.9 billion in 2020 from $ 120.1 billion in 2019 as many industries shrank during the pandemic, according to a report by market researcher SuperData. But for 2021, SuperData predicts that the game market will only grow 2% in 2021. SuperData said the double-digit growth of the sector […]
What game development methodology can teach the Biden administration about solving the COVID-19 pandemic
Ten months into the world’s response to the unprecedented global COVID-19 pandemic, every corner of America is attempting to find the best approach for bringing ourselves back to “normal” without exposing our vulnerable populations. I am in the unique position of being a leader directly involved with companies around the globe, including leading NC West […]
How the pandemic jump-started mobile gaming’s social evolution
2020 brought massive unexpected change into the world, shutting down most countries due to COVID-19. During these challenging months, mobile games quickly rose to become one of the most versatile and accessible forms of entertainment for individuals stuck at home. People in the game industry have already started pointing to 2020 as the beginning of […]
Pushed by Pandemic, Amazon Goes on a Hiring Spree Without Equal
SEATTLE — Amazon has embarked on an extraordinary hiring binge this year, vacuuming up an average of 1,400 new workers a day and solidifying its power as online shopping becomes more entrenched in the coronavirus pandemic. The hiring has taken place at Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, at its hundreds of warehouses in rural communities and […]
YouTube suspends One America News, a Trump favorite, for peddling pandemic misinformation
YouTube said it suspended right-wing channel One America News for one week, beginning Tuesday, for violating its policy against misinformation related to the covid-19 pandemic and temporarily stripped the channel of its ability to make money from other videos. YouTube spokeswoman Ivy Choi said OAN, which has 1.2 million subscribers on the video service and […]
One hell of a send-off: Pandemic Legacy: Season 0 wraps a stylish board game series
Enlarge Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games! Check out our complete board gaming coverage at cardboard.arstechnica.com. When Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 was released in 2015, it was met with a rave reaction from players. A campaign-based take on the original Pandemic, it dropped fans into the familiar role of medics battling to eradicate deadly […]
New PlayStation and Xbox Arrive During a Pandemic Gold Rush
EMERYVILLE, Calif. — Huddled under blankets to brace against the cold, J.B. August and his buddies couldn’t help grinning as the doors of the boarded-up GameStop store finally opened. The six men, strangers turned friends after camping outside on the sidewalk all night, let out whoops of excitement on Tuesday morning as they finally got […]
The best dating apps for dating during the coronavirus pandemic
By the end of March 2020, 32 out of 50 U.S. states were in lockdown — and on Sunday, March 29, there were more swipes on Tinder than on any other day in the app’s history. There’s no doubt the coronavirus pandemic is changing the playbook for dating in person, with online dating seeing a […]
Microsoft researchers use Bing data to track shifting human needs during the pandemic
Automation and Jobs Read our latest special issue. Open Now Research about the pandemic has mostly focused on epidemiology, but health data alone can’t inform policies — decisions should ideally take into account the impacts on communities. Driven by this maxim, Microsoft researchers developed a framework to characterize the changes in people’s physiological, socioeconomic, and […]
Apple asks retail staff to work remotely as pandemic rumbles on
Apple is asking some of its retail staff to work from home as the coronavirus pandemic causes the ongoing closure of many of its stores. The tech giant closed all of its outlets outside of China in mid-March as the pandemic worsened. In early May it started to tentatively reopen some of its sites, but […]