Amid the flare-up of the novel coronavirus in China, citizens in central provinces, the hotbed of the epidemic, and beyond have been urged to avoid travel, contact with others, and generally stay home in order to quell the spread of the virus.
“Movies are cancelled, plays are cancelled, get-togethers are cancelled, hot springs are cancelled. Now I just want to play a game, but it collapsed”, Weibo influencer Tiyuxiaoqiao wrote, as cited by Abacus News.
However, one Steam developer appears to know perfectly well how to make at least one category of residents stay home and spend some quality time there – those who are keen on video games… and porn. The latter soft spot is what he based his saucy flagship title, Mirror, on, and apparently didn’t miscalculate, even falling in favour with the crowd, especially given the fact that it is now being given away for free, PCGamesN reported.
In a post titled "Wuhan, We’re With You”, Kagami Works, who developed Mirror back in 2018, says “the year has just started and we’re all facing challenging situations”.
“To avoid the nCov, it’s better to stay at home. So we decide to give away 45,000 copies of Mirror to keep you company. Please accept our gift and stay strong!” Kagami Works posted the uplifting message.
What residents of the province have to do is link up their phone numbers to confirm their mapped locations and enjoy their free link to a bit of relaxing content at a time when China has been going through quite a bit of stress.
Generally speaking, the online influx in China has indeed been overwhelming in the past few weeks:
“While the situation is tragic and dire, almost everyone in China is online now, which is a tremendous circumstance in itself”, said Charlie Moseley, founder of the Chengdu Gaming Federation. “I would speculate their online population is at least [two to three times] what they had planned for, which considering the scale of China, is remarkable”, he noted.
The coronavirus, which was first registered in late December 2019 in the central Chinese province of Hubei, causes a severe respiratory infection and pneumonia in particular, and has so far affected almost 11,000 people around the world, leading to over 250 fatalities in China.