Three of the UK’s leading video games developers will add the coronavirus safety advice
Popular titles such as Candy Crush Saga, Dirt Rally 2.0 and Sniper Elite 4 are among the games that will feature the advice.
The message, ‘Stay home. Save lives.’ mirrors the government’s own recommendations for helping to minimise the spread of the virus.
“I reached out to DCMS [Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport] a few days ago to say is there anything we can do,” Jason Kingsley, chief executive of games company Rebellion and chair of the games trade body Tiga told the BBC.
“A lot of people spend hundreds of hours in computer games.
“And in this case, we thought we could help society by reminding people of their obligations to others.”
Toby Evan-Jones, business development chief at Codemasters, the creator of Dirt Rally 2.0, added: “We realised that technology within our games, which enables the remote updating of banners within the virtual environment, could be repurposed to assist with the coronavirus communication effort.
“Reaching out to our contacts at the civil service was met with nothing but support.”
