Plague Inc. developer has confirmed that it will introduce anti-vaxxers to the video game title focused around growing a deadly pathogen. The planned addition comes from the success of a petition that gained a great deal of interest.
You’ll probably recall Ndemic Creations pushing their 2012 title that has you creating and growing a deadly pathogen. Your goal is to eradicate life from Earth by infecting everyone with a deadly plague and evolving your pathogen to survive human efforts to destroy you.
Only a week ago the petition appeared on change.org and garnered a fair deal of interest. Enough interest to get the attention of the developers who said that they’d introduce an anti-vaxxer scenario should the petition hit 10k.
Ok, fine!
If this petition gets to 10k, will add a specific new anti-vaxxer scenario to Plague Inc. https://t.co/DJjmRFpOMa
— Plague Inc. / Rebel Inc. (@NdemicCreations) February 24, 2019
The boost from the developers led to the supporter count to hit 20,670 at the time of writing. The developers caught the count at 10,698 on February 26 and confirmed that they’re going to start figuring out how to add anti-vaxxers into the game.
Alright, alright! You spoke, we listened. Neurie’s very happy to hear that we’re going to start figuring out anti-vaxxers soon. He’s dying to try and get inside their heads. https://t.co/fYq09awgJc pic.twitter.com/Sof0aJE0yw
— Plague Inc. / Rebel Inc. (@NdemicCreations) February 26, 2019
The creator of Plague Inc. James Vaughan told Eurogamer that: “It’s great to see so many people sticking up for science!”. He added, ”
“We’re currently working out how Anti-Vaxxers will work in the game – we have a few ideas that we’re trying out and running them through our algorithms. (The biggest challenge is that if everyone in Plague Inc.’s global simulation suddenly stopped getting vaccinated then it would be a very easy game to win!)”
“On a side note, it’s amazing that six years after the game was released there is still such a huge and passionate community for Plague Inc. It means a lot to us and it makes it a lot of fun to keep working on new updates!”
He also discusses the real-life diseases with Eurogamer by stating:
“There are enough concerning trends (e.g. antibiotic resistance) without us also making it easier for horrific diseases of the past to come back. People take our modern healthcare for granted and it’s almost impossible for anyone to imagine what the world would be like if everyone routinely got measles. If adding something to the game helps some people understand the importance of vaccinations then it will be worth it.”
He also says: “It’s great to see so many people sticking up for science!”
Eurogamer touches on a recent event in the US which saw Washington State hit by a measles outbreak with at least 64 people being affected. According to AP News, of the 63 confirmed cases in Clark County, 55 of those were not immunized against measles. Six of the cases couldn’t be verified with two cases involving a child who had received only one dose of the MMR vaccine. Additionally, 45 of the confirmed cases involved children between the ages of 1 and 10.
Back in 2014 Plague Inc. got its biggest update allowing players to create their own scenarios. and in 2017 it had hit over 100 million players.
Plague Inc. is a real-time strategy title which is currently available on iOS, Android, and PC. The addition of adding anti-vaxxers into the title is being worked on.
The post Plague Inc. to Add Anti-Vaxxers Scenario After Petition Exceeds 10,000 Signatures by Ben Bayliss appeared first on DualShockers.