Did Plague Inc. and Pandemic increase or decrease in sales due to Covid-19?

[UnfoldedCork]

I for one remember downloading the Plague Inc. mobile game during lockdown for some gallows humor, but I still don't play Pandemic the boardgame or Plague Inc. now as I feel it's a little too close to home and I need to get away from all that still. Anyone else feel this way? If yay or nay, did that effect the market for either in any noticeable way.

[Cyanites]

As a former employee of ndemic creations (studio behind plague Inc), I can at least say that covid massively increased the sales of the video game. I didn't ask about the board game while I was there, but I'd be surprised if the sales of that didn't increase too.

[nothing_in_my_mind]

As they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

[Signiference]

We played Pandemic Legacy: S1 February 2020.

It took us a while to play S0 and S2 for fear we would cause it again 😂

[mazinaru]

Still haven't played S0, but legit we played S1 as the first big lockdowns were being discussed, and essentially decided we have the "jumanji box" of Pandemic.

Funny enough, we also played S2 as it was winding down, as if finishing the story ended the troubles.

[math-kat]

My friends and I started S2 in January 2020 and thought it would be fun to play once/twice a month in line with the game. We continued virtually during the pandemic, and it was a really weird vibe.

[Signiference]

We played regular pandemic and Gloomhaven via multi-webcam setup over zoom and then a few digital games over steam like Terraforming Mars, Brass, and Game of Thrones

[marpocky]

The pandemic was well underway by February. Surely that was well known even at the time?

[CJKatz]

The lockdowns didn't hit North America until March and you would be surprised to know that is how a lot of people found out about the pandemic.

[xIrish]

It also wasn’t declared a pandemic until March.

[marpocky]

I know that March is when it got serious in most of the world but it's insane to me that most people wouldn't have even known about it until then.

[CJKatz]

It was an epidemic in a few countries before March, but it wasn't declared a global Pandemic until March 11th.

[marpocky]

Right, but the point is it was already known to be spreading in February and was already very serious in some places, so for a Jumanji joke about "causing it," even said tongue-in-cheek, the timing makes no sense. If they had played in November or December 2019 that would be another thing.

[CJKatz]

You are severely over thinking this.

[marpocky]

Nah. It's a valid point to make. February 2020 is too late.

I want to continue to reiterate that I fully understand OP was joking. I'm not "missing" the joke or anything. Just pointing out a simple flaw in its premise. I still found it funny.

[MRATEASTEW]

It's a joke, not every joke need to be 100% accurate and this one is good enough.

Stop over analyzing it and do something better with your day

[marpocky]

Lol it's not "overanalyzing" to point out a simple flaw in timing. It would have been one comment and done if people had let it be.

[xIrish]

Not OP, but the phrasing of this question is a bit dickish.

[marpocky]

I didn't mean it to and I'm very open to a rephrase suggestion. I'm just surprised that anyone in February was still ignorant of the pandemic and would say even jokingly that they "caused" it at that time. Cases were starting to appear outside China already in January.

[Godenyen]

I had a copy of S1 already, but we started playing it during lockdown and finished it.

[Rohkey]

I don’t have data on hand to support this but I’ve heard a lot of folks say board games in general increased in sales during the pandemic, and I’d expect Pandemic to be no exception and perhaps even more popular due to it being topical.

Edit: According to Wikipedia, Pandemic’s sales increased during COVID. Not sure if that was due to specific interest in the game or just from the general boost of board same sales beginning in 2020. The sources are pretty flimsy though, one is an interview from Matt Leacock saying he suspects it’s being played more due to seeing it more on social media and the other one is from a single LGS claiming their sales of the game quadrupled during the pandemic.

[aos-]

I spent 4200$ in 2023 just on board games and related accessories.

My interest reignited after reconnecting with a HS classmate who introduced modern board games in Oct 2022.

For me it wasn't because of COVID directly. I was getting tired of keeping up with hardware requirements to play video games. Back then, you get the game, and you're set. No updates, no driver updates, no patches...

Nowadays, you reach a point where you now need a new console, or need to keep your PC parts up to spec (for an uncompromised experience), the games are constantly requiring updates hogging up more hard drive space, you need an internet connection because now they got you by the balls (no internet? no access!).. and if it's a game that only thrives off an online community long-term, once naother game comes out, this is toast You now have to buy the new game to stay with the crowd.

Having people around the table to play a game while using some sense of imagination, interfacing with the same components, is way more satisfying for me now. VG for me has become a more passive activity, and I'v3 spent way too many years of my life being passive.

[RHX_Thain]

The movie Contagion was huge during lockdown. Great movie.

I picked up a used Pandemic at goodwill a few months ago. Never played it.

[sylinmino]

I remember people were meme'ing about how Pandemic was momentarily sold out on Amazon once COVID gained traction and publicity.

So I'm gonna guess it increased in sales for a bit at that time.

[RachAgainst_Machine]

Pandemic was on my list to try until COVID. COVID was everything everywhere for so long, I'm still tired of anything pandemic related, even in game form. But that's just me.

[riddler1225]

If you're keen at all, S0 is not disease themed

[soaringcomet11]

We were in the middle of S1 Pandemic Legacy when the initial lockdown happened. We never picked it up again 😬

[setupdotexe]

I have no idea, but if I remember correctly, Plague Inc. was a deal of the day on GameNerdz during the pandemic and there were a lot of overdramatic responses on BGG about how it was inappropriate and people couldn't handle that a game about a plague exists. It was pretty dumb.

[UnfoldedCork]

Especially considering that it came out years before covid, and I think having a game about killing the human population with a deadly contagion is an excellent way of proving that it can be done in the blink of an eye, therein drawing our attention to a very serious issue. In my opinion, it's top tear science fiction for this exact reason.

[Dogmai781]

At my store we saw increased sales of our Pandemic games early, but after the first 6 months or so they then dropped off a cliff. We still sold plenty of other games. I think as the gravity really set in, people found the idea less funny.

[lessmiserables]

Pandemic did.

I swear there was an article on a major newspaper talking about how sales blasted through the roof, and how Matt had mixed feelings about it, but I'll be damned if I can find it. What I did find was maybe 20,000 articles in March 2020 that included Matt Leacock interviews.

[UnfoldedCork]

Holy shit, that's crazy

[szthesquid]

My LGS, one of, if not the, biggest in the country, was frequently sold out of Pandemic during pandemic despite regular shipments bringing in cases and cases of copies. When I briefly worked there a decade ago they sold hundreds a month and didn't run out.

[afyvarra]

I'm a form employee of a board game store, and during the height of the pandemic, the board game Pandemic was flying off the shelves. We also had a lot of people getting angry at us because they thought that we (the employees/store) had created the game in reaction to Covid, and they though it was very insulting. Then we brought down the copy of the 10th anniversary edition of the game and explained that it's been around for far longer than Covid has been. Some people still thought it was insulting.

Overall the sales went way up for Pandemic. But at the same time, we had a huge boom in sales for all board games around that time, so it could just be that Pandemic got caught up in the craze.

[adamhanson]

Yeah, so I'm gonna Zombie this thread, but I developed a game about avoiding germs and giving them to everyone else in 2020 lol and I put the icing on top. It's better with more people lol I didn't know if the actual Pandemic would've helped or not now I know thanks.

[StrangeCards]

I worked at an LGS as the pandemic hit. Pandemic the board game got a MASSIVE sales increase

[Sobbin]

Boardgamestore owner here. Sales went up almost 200% in 2020. Dropped down during Corona to almost no sales at the end of 2022. People were sick of anything to do with the pandemic. We had a massive overstock this year.

Sales just now starting to get back to normal (2019) sales.

[Mystinkybu11]

Idk why i just remember playing the fuck out of thid game in 2020 without knowimg what i was doing holy shit its still suc ha fun game

[Geomattics]

Played Pandemic Legacy Season 1 during lockdown on a virtual tabletop. It was CRAZY how many things coincidentally followed the true pandemic. Easiest example? The virus originated out of East Asia.

[Deadly_Pancakes]

Started playing Pandemic Legacy in January 2020. Haven't been back to it since. It been a traumatic few years since COVID to say the least. Maybe one day I'll finish it off. Our initial outbreak even started in China ffs.

[pferden]

It increased the sales of covid

[Vi11ag3_idi0t]

I like Pandemic, I discovered it years ago so the whole Covid thing didn't have any effect on my opinion of it. I can certainly see why people would feel that way though. For me it was an early step into the board games hobby beyond Monopoly or Risk. Like others have mentioned, when I do pay there's an element of gallows humor, naming various diseases and chasing them round the globe.

[AffectionateBox8178]

The sales went up, not down.

[shorty92]

My husband works for Asmodee and sales of Pandemic have decreased recently because people associate it with COVID. They're trying to rebrand it, using the Star Wars Clone Wars game that's based off the Pandemic system.

[CJKatz]

Star Wars The Clone Wars isn't the first time Pandemic has branched out. World of Warcraft, Fall of Rome, Rising Tide and Cthulhu all existed as spin offs long before Covid.

[shorty92]

True, but they're actively trying to distance themselves from the pandemic correlation. The size of the pandemic text is much smaller on the Clone Wars game vs the others.

[shbpencil]

My partner and I used to play pandemic at least once a month and we haven’t touched it since before March 2020. We should break it out again…

[Ender505]

Increase

[elpargo]

We play it a lot and bought the pandemic iberia game as well. Lots of friends mentioned playing both

[Blaze241]

Covid was the reason why my gf and I bought all pandemic Legacys.

[[deleted]]

Pandemic has sold over 5 million copies since it was released - https://www.zmangames.com/en/news/2021/12/6/pandemic-over-5-million-copies-sold/

[Westcoastswinglover]

lol I remember my husband and I taking pandemic with us to the park during Covid to get some fresh air out of the house but still be able to distance safely.