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Games vs Covid-19: FIFA 2020 will provide artificial crowd sounds for Premier League TV coverage

Keeping track of what's happening

Games vs Covid-19: FIFA 2020 will provide artificial crowd sounds for Premier League TV coverage

With movement restrictions impacting many millions of people globally, the time spent on screen-based entertainment is increasing.

This chronologically-ordered list is an attempt to keep tabs on stories reflecting such behaviour so game developers can better understand how different platforms and titles are performing.

Hopefully it will also be useful for consumers as various games and game services become more accessible in terms of pricing. 

8 June:

28 May:

27 May:

  • Isle of Man TT Race 2020 is switching to the Isle of Man TT: Ride on the Edge 2 game, with pro racers and pro gamers partnering up into teams to achieve the best aggregate time. Games will be streamed on iomttraces.com from 6 June.

21 May:

  • Kerbal Space Program 2 has been delayed to Fall 2021 due to the "unique challenges" arising from Covid-19. 

19 May:

11 May:

GungHo Online has pushed back the release of its Switch-bound arena brawler Ninjala to 24 June due to development delays caused by Covid-19 isolation. 

4 May: 

1 May

29 April:

  • EA's FIFA 20 Ultimate Team's Team of the Season event is truncated to Team of the Season So Far, but will also highlight players who have been particularly active in community outreach.  

22 April: 

20 April

  • The ePremier League esports competition, which will pitch professional Premier League footballers head-to-head in EA Sports FIFA 2020 - Raheem Sterling plays Wilfried Zaha - kicks off with the final to be broadcast on Sky Sports on 25 April. The prize money will be donated to charity. 

17 April:

  • Electric racing series Formula E is launching its online ABB Formula E Race At Home Challenge, which will be broadcast by FOX Sports. 
  • Esports outfit Gfinity and betting partner Betway have created The eCricket Challenge which sees some of the biggest names in world cricket competing against each other in the video game Cricket 19. Shows will be broadcast on Willow TV. 

16 April: 

15 April:

14 April:

9 April:

  • 16 female and 16 male tennis professionals including Andy Murray have signed up for charitable a virtual Madrid Open tennis competition using the game Tennis World Tour (which doesn't feature Andy Murray). 

7 April:

6 April:

  • The Finnish National Ice Hockey League season will be completed via NHL 20 and broadcast on national TV.

3 April:

2 April:

  • App Annie data shows the mobile games category saw the largest increase in downloads between Q4 2019 and Q1 2020, up 30%, on Google Play and Apple App Store.  In China, spending on iOS games was up 15%

1 April:

  • 16 NBA players including Derrick Jones Jr. and Kevin Durant are going head-to-head in the Xbox version of NBA 2K's Players Tournament, which will be streamed on ESPN and ESPN2 from 3 April. 

31 March:

30 March:

  • Niantic announces adds more 'indoor' features to location-based games Pokemon Go, Ingress and Harry Potter:Wizards Unite.

29 March:

27 March:

25 March:

24 March:

23 March:

  • Steam breaks its concurrent user record again - 22 million
  • "It remains to be seen which verticals see the most growth as the quarantine phase of the Coronavirus pandemic gives way to the recession phase. But as it stands now, gaming hasn’t been the primary beneficiary of this moment."

22 March:

21 March:

  • Jam City announces in-game specials and gifts across seven titles including Cookie Jam and Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery and Panda Pop over the weekend and coming week. 

20 March:

19 March:

18 March:

17 March:

16 March:

15 March:

  • According to the unofficial SteamDB website, Steam hits a new all-time record for concurrent users with 20.3 million users during a 24-hour period
  • Some users suffer from sign-in issues on Xbox Live, which takes a couple of hours to fix  
  • Real Betis and Sevilla played their scheduled derby via FIFA 2020 and Twitch

14 March

February:


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Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.