Coronavirus Good for the Industry? | Game Dev Unchained Episode 218

I [Music] what's up everybody welcome to another episode of game dev unchain the number one game development podcasts about game development and the lifestyle of their up I am your host Brandon Pham and as you can see while usually this is the case I am gonna be the only one here this is a very special episode because of the status quo of today well last week I think it's important to kind of dedicate this episode about the coronavirus so last week we gotta had a roundtable news episode with the panel of experts and we spent the first half of that episode primarily on coronavirus and you can see how a week has passed and how crazier the news has been I mean this is something that has been developing for a few weeks now but I feel like the last week especially the United States things

have been taking it well things have been taken more seriously and so let's go ahead and spend this episode to talk about the long-term effects the short-term effects about what this actually means and look at it with the realistic view alright right now I don't know where you guys are right now whoever is following us we are opening up hotlines later in our blue champs discord channel in the color hotline we love for you guys to drop by in there and actually be a part of the show and share what's going on within your country within your city what you're doing right now to self quarantine I think this is kind of like a a way for the game dev unchain community to be together hover around that warm computer game together listen to each other and really analyze what's going to be happening for the future of the industry because the industry will be if not already have

changed quite a bit so let's talk about a few of those changes was it good def right let's talk about the corona virus is it hype or real right that's the biggest question that everybody's having right now there's a big majority of United States Americans that are having like a pandemic scare right you might be hearing a lot about toilet paper suddenly became a hot commodity everybody's going to the grocery store and answering shelves with hand sanitizers just like hilarious and sad news of people trying to capitalize on that and stocking up to up sell it on Amazon for $70 a bottle for hand sanitizer and kind of being berated by the public for it don't know why this one particular person you can probably look it up al stood himself on the news art on the news channels kind of saying how it's a bad mistake and he's trying to donate most of the stocks back because

obviously you know the shortages are sort of real but I mean after a week you know the shelves gonna be reshelve so people who are not really looking into this as much were are really late into actually looking into the details of this I admit I was kind of the same my wife mother-in-law everybody was around me was kind of warning me about this like few weeks ago but like the majority of Americans I think kind of felt like all this is hysteria epidemic people are freaking out and in a nutshell it is sort of true because the virus itself is not that scary I mean of course it's causing a lot more deaths than the flus seasons and what regular what we regular face with our face with I mean older people younger people anybody with respiratory weaker lungs

are a huge danger to this are hugely in danger of this virus so that's real but it's vital I mean there's a good percentage of people who've gotten it and are recovered from it or are extra recovering with it so like any pandemic I think the scariest part is how people react right this is actually I tease around with my friends and stuff but this is the a period where you actually see people really are right because that's the test I mean how many opportunities do you have in your lifetime can you really see a person's true character right until they face real pandemics or travesty or anything that really stresses their their character so it's a good time to look around your neighborhood see how your neighbors are

reacting how helpful they really are because like any post-apocalyptic pandemic movies that you've seen people usually have really cordial has at least initially have like a very nice neighborly outreach to people around them but give it a few weeks where food supplies are getting short governments not really backing out that's where we really see it I don't anticipate it getting that bad but yeah I think it's time to really wake up and really treat this seriously because it is super contagious it's super contagious viruses you don't need to hear that from me but I'm just reiterating the facts and if you're in the United States don't be fooled by the statistics right now we're actually tracking in line with Italy and as you know Italy is the second country

behind China where it all started that has the most reported cases in deaths right regarding to this virus because they were mostly unprepared didn't treat it seriously and the country a health care system wasn't ready to kind of handle this kind of pandemic so we're tracking pretty much in line with them in terms of cases reported every day and people being affected in and dying from it right so we're actually looking at Italy if it's the second worst country being affected in the United States is way bigger than that most likely this is something that we're looking at not just the next four to eight weeks which is most bars restaurants in most corn self-quarantine announcements are being told to to a lot of Americans right now to kind of stay home for the next two

weeks at least but looking at maybe eight weeks I anticipate in from what President Trump has been saying it's gonna probably take over all of our summer you gotta remember when people haven't exactly gotten tested yet right and so that's where the numbers that you're seeing can be very deceiving because per capita United States is the worse in terms of having tests available per million population right so what does that mean that means we are not equipped to have all these test kits ready but even have a system to kind of dole them out to whoever have symptoms or anticipate they they have symptoms can go out freely and get that test right now it's actually pretty hard you know

my household I'm in Orange County I don't know man I feel like I we probably did have the coronal ice because there was so you know we thought was the flu that kind of came through our house like a couple weeks ago everybody kind of fought through it and I was like my father-in-law is finally recovering from it but it was uh it was a little different so I have no idea right unless we get tested by even my two-year-old was suffering like through like a five-day cough that was pretty nasty I mean I kept him up all night it was really rough but what everyone is saying around the world is like you can show no symptoms at all and still be positive coronavirus but the conditions now are set in place because they don't have enough test kits available for everyone to go to the hospital and actually get tested they're restricting a lot of people setting up these arbitrary guidelines pretty much saying that you know you got to be in contact with some

you got to know that you know for sure I understand from their sand because the healthcare system can't handle a barrage of people just going to the hospitals right now asking for tests be chaotic but even with that being said where people are actually being pushed away from or being discouraged of being tested or be turned away even though they show some symptoms or or whatever they're being you know the everyone is being pushed away because there's just not enough availability of them our numbers are tracking behind Italy so the the confirmed tests that we have been giving out to citizens and celebrities it seems like Tom Hanks and everybody else is fine NBA superstars can get tested but like regular citizens will have a tough time and you'll probably be another like forty eight weeks before we actually see the

availability availability of all this so it'll be interesting having to see the results of this what it would mean for the rest of the year so with that being said we're looking at a long summer right we're looking a long summer the United States is probably much worse than the numbers that are being shown on the statistic site sites so don't look at just the deaths affected right now look at how many tests that actually are being confirmed versus us as a country we have 300 million people living here and the the same day just to give you some perspective the same day that we started recording the confirmed cases was the same day that South Korea

started two confirmed cases and we're going at a rate of like under a hundred tests per day versus 3,000 tests per day done by South Korea right so and they're a population of like 60 million people versus our 360 so other countries are responding a lot faster than we are in United States and it's one of the reasons why that Italy is in it's pretty much martial law locked down right now where everybody is kind of contained inside their home just to kind of help curve this rising pandemic and so we're tracking about 10 days behind them so there is a common sense to this whole thing a sensibility that people are going out stocking up to have to cut a people from going out as much as possible you know we in the United

States sorry for focusing on Unites States would look for you guys from other countries to kind of chime in to our hotline later and and talk about what what's going on in your own country but Elise last Friday was when President Trump was basically admitting that this is a big problem right and then of course the weekend of Costco lines around Orange County was like bending around the blocks five times right so the last weekend was the worst weekend to actually go and try to buy something but every week you should be stocked up I mean we're not in short supply I don't think you need six months of supply to hide in a bunker for the next six months it's not that crazy everyone is pretty much inside their homes right now myself included I mean I've always been a hermit so it's not too much of a change for me so that's the situation so far

right if you guys are not taking this seriously if you you're not believing the hype or it's as bad as people think or it's just as you know maybe there is some truth that if people didn't label this as the coronavirus people would have just treated it as if it's an extreme simple extremely cold our people that's what people would have thought that's what I I'm pretty sure I have have no idea I recovered from it just fine but this is something that's gonna hang around in the summer right a lot of schools a lot of workplaces now we're getting the game industry are basically pushing their work to people at home right people are encouraged to kind of work from home remote working all of a sudden right so this is something that can be detrimental in this short sense where gaves Neda stills Egypt however they're

not gonna be shipping on time let's face it right so for people who ever never worked at home or have always had dreams and hopes of working from home are waking up to a reality here yeah and I was in this situation before so not everybody has like a really good PC high-end PC to kind of be able to make that jump from workstation to home workstation right not everyone is equipped to that and so and it's not like the company has readily supplied workstations to send people home with or hive and powered laptops for them to temporarily use right or beyond alone everyone's kind of reacting to this in real time and so with that being said on on top of that it's not as easy as people think right this is from my own

personal experience and just talking to a lot of people remote working and working from home requires a very certain discipline and this is where I feel triple-a industry professionals have the hardest time doing it unless you are triple-a professional that has been freelancing as a side gig beyond the triple a full time job you're not ready for this type of shift in mentality right there's so many distractions working from home especially now you're kind of granted this freedom to kind of be your own boss per se right and then having the occasional Skype call here and there for meetings and such it requires a certain focus discipline productivity to actually get the same amount of work done if you're at home versus if you

were surrounded by your co-workers that peer pressure does do a certain amount of pushing when you're at work when you're at home when no one's really holding you that much accountable as your workplace as you guys are probably guessing right the bosses at these jobs are trying to figure this out most triple-a companies before the coronavirus before the span Demick we're largely against remote working right only a few all-star member or someone that could not live by the job where the offices can get granted ability right I mean this was happening 3-4 years ago that I'm not saying remote working didn't exist but it was very for a selected few with the mass majority if someone else say hey you know I noticed Joe who lives in Michigan is remote

working for us can I do that once in a week it'll be a hard flat no all right unless you're a ha you know a hotshot and they want to appease you but most of the cases all right a good percentage let's say 70 80 percent even higher maybe would be opposed to the idea of you being able to remotely work from home when you live close to the office or whatever rep in addition to that something that you know my company does go demyx we offer code development and stuff and remote working our remote offices is relatively a new idea right and it's a new idea that not everybody wants to jump on board on just yet so after is endemic now that everybody's worried for home and there is some type of an efficiency there still some results of getting work done maybe not as the pay at the same pace as they used to because for the reasons I've

listed before this in my estimation gonna last until probably August I don't think anybody's gonna be jumping in the office in April at least until mid April but it's even like a softy because it really depends on when until we actually see in the United States that test kits are readily available for anybody who wants to go to their local Walgreens or CVS and do a drive-through tests swab right that's kind of like what they're figuring out this week until that's readily available which is probably another two weeks it will take a while probably three to four weeks after that where offices are opening their doors again for people to

come back into the office okay so we're talking about at least two months at least two months and even then once people get tested takes two to three days to get the results right for a normal citizen we're gonna see this huge jump of actual confirmed cases in the United States right and once we actually see the numbers being five times or ten times actually worse than the data that we have now not a lot of workplaces will be readily available to work as normal right they just want to make sure that that number dies down as much as possible so people who are sitting at their homes right now or have not been really looking at this and thinking that by two weeks this thing is over especially small businesses or small any

developers well indie developers actually have are at least more coronavirus proof because most in these CEOs actually have been doing remote work forever rent and one of the interesting things that next week we're gonna be bring it on we're gonna have renege kittens from the international game developer Association to kind of come on we'll talk about the impacts it's been having as you can see left and right all conventions GDC e3 south-by-southwest major conferences have been closing left and right right GGC right now actually this week right now are doing like a online only conference talk session for the next three four days so be sure to check that out so there's a lot of changes being set in place already about this idea of remote working all right so people web conferencing

you're seeing a huge boom now initially people love the idea because what's not to love you can work from home you can try to get work done and you people are getting a taste of personal freedom right something that I've been championing for the last four or five years having that taste of what it's like to have your time back and still get stuff done the challenge is I would say we'll take another six to six months to a year for people to just for you to actually get the same amount work done as in the office and still be on time to kind of deliver on deadlines there's an adjustment period for people who haven't done anything on the side but only have clocked in from eight to five to their jobs right that's the reality of that and hopefully people who are listening to this who are remote working and and have never freelance before and just suddenly finding themselves at home on

their at workstation home workstation and still expect to cut and deliver the same goods it's gonna be tough man there are challenges because communication is not as easy stuff that we talked about before you constantly have to chat at first it's fun but second it can be frustrating things kind of being said on text doesn't have the same you know facial recognition as if you are sitting next to a person and so I don't suspect too many fights but there's little things that can our people and misunderstandings can happen and you know just play it around in your head I used to have deadlines two weeks from now it is silly to think that your producer is expecting the same deadlines being met now that nobody is next to each other right everyone's from home be tough I mean I think the leads of senior people will do their best to kind of make it work but I think there is some type of leeway right now for

assignments not being met so besides from that the good things is that after this I'm curious to see but I'm willing I'm willing to bet that most people after this whole thing blows over again late summer when people are back in their office I think they're gonna be a good discussion about making this more of a thing because by that time people should be adjusted right I don't see people being laid off I'll be very interesting to be this from this period from March to August it'll be the it be the freest period I think a people being laid off in the game mystery I don't think we're gonna see any expose all

right I always associate office politics with being in the office right so if you don't have any of the office stuff the dynamic of that would be very interesting to hear to see how that changes would love to kind of talk to people maybe after this thing's all over to see how that has have been different like do people actually work better together by not being together or that because now it's just all about the work right and I'm actually thinking through this too as a lead as a manager most of your job is managing people though you can still do that of course more than ever you need to do that we're doing remote work just making sure everybody's on the same page communication is clear right because online it's very tough to that

make sure everyone's is delivering but there are some some manager roles it's just more about meetings all the time right so I wonder I wonder how that affects these people at these bigger companies if there's gonna be if they're gonna be exposed for not doing much or or not doing a good job you know because a lot of lease my bad experience in the triple-a game industry has been managers not taking not being accountable when things go bad right because usually what happens right when a studio is not delivering the goods there's a bad project or whatever it's always the grunts that get laid off right not the managers so I wanted this flip side of things we're more than ever managers are

needed to kind of step up and do things and organize that I can see it two ways right they a beat be unbearable my too much to handle or they do too little and most of the team has to kind of pick up the slack crap that's another aspect that would be very interesting for this period to watch yeah I mean the good thing is that games still need to be shipped be interesting to see if the games that are what companies are that we're crunching in this time period usually they crunch during the summer if they're looking for a game to be released for the Christmas holiday especially with the x-box and PS 5 stuff those launch titles are under the gun even more but it's kind of going against

with the deficiency right efficiency is definitely gonna have a drop until it gets better probably a month or two for all this remote working to actually improve because people have to adjust the thing that people need to understand that listeners out there and maybe you know veterans are listening and not to downplay veterans but but if you're listening to podcast you're probably ahead of the curve right let's just give you the credit because you're already thinking about freelancer already do a freelancer or have been doing with things on the side are not fully dependable on your your main job you already have this discipline you already worked out the kinks you ready know how to stay up late or continue to work on things and be that self motivator to kind of accomplish deadlines aside from your other tasks right that's the wall and barricade that I keep talking about

throughout this episode that people for the first time working from home will struggle with you're not gonna have an IT guy at your doorstep when you can't sink to perforce right things like that that we take for granted while we're in the studio you're gonna have to be very technical to be able to handle that right let's paint a scenario that's really real right most people who haven't worked it's - you probably don't understand this but let me walk you through this when you start a new job and everything the first week is usually onboarding right you're you're you're you're giving a bunch of guidelines studio culture stuff but most importantly you're getting your computer setup you're getting synced up to the Depot of the project files and your auction you're you know getting set up with all the software right you're essentially doing that week again

if you have never worked remotely for your job right because this was pretty sudden Friday was announced over the weekend studios across the nation across the world decided that it's best for people doctor working so people most likely or have been getting emails to stay home until two weeks at the minimum but a lot of places are saying mid-april right stay home or from home right if you're not set up yet you're gonna have to do all that set up yourself and most people are gonna struggle they're not gonna know how to work perforce install it get the software they need they have to talk to the IT from the company to get the software on loan all right unless they have the software at home most people don't these are thousand dollar software's right not everybody buys it so they would have to and they can't use their own personal software this actually advise against if you're a full-time

employee you can't use your own software right so some companies might overlook that and be kind of just sweeping the rug but bigger company's most likely will try to do it legally just to make sure that they don't find themselves in trouble because we're not looking at a two-week a two-week status here where we're looking at a month or more across the summer right get people set up so it's kind of an investment to kind of get people set up so all that's like roadblock and stuff that's gonna get figured out there's got to be a lot of it spent time and money right well so eventually everybody especially these companies with 300 plus people suddenly at home they're gonna get all set up eventually to try to meet these deadlines they're not gonna meet these deadlines things have to be revised just like anything all the other industries are doing movie industry is getting hit the most right now everything's being

pushed back understandably to kind of worry about this function that's not functioning anymore right it's a new way of thinking and it's gonna be a learning period and like I said efficacy will fell so the great thing about that is that after this whole thing blows over after all this investment in time and money to get people set up at home it's finally established they're not gonna suddenly throw all that away the conversation is gonna open up like hey maybe we can do this half the week or once a week more more people will have the OK from upper management it's not so preposterous anymore it's like hey we've been doing this for five months I kind of like that can I do this every Friday more and more people are more and more

upper management's gonna be open to the idea because they've been doing it it's been tested they see that it works they were forced into thinking like that and so the great thing about this whole thing is that in a short amount of weeks a pretty old way of thinking type of Industry has completely changed our minds right I think they're seeing the benefits where people can can basically not have to come in the office I think the result of this will have more of a hybrid approach at the very least that people don't necessarily have to be in the office as much if they live locally but also bigger companies will be open to the idea of not having to relocate new people to their office right they'll be open to the idea of just sending a

workstation to a new employee and just continue to get kick-ass work because they have the infrastructure that is at least being built right now or have been built just for a select a few kind of open to everybody and now they have that in place they'll be okay with with others doing so is doing so on a full-time basis right so that's that's very exciting I mean that will open up the industry and I feel like fix all all the issues that I've been having with the industry others have been having with industry and most importantly and kind of kind of move away from that mindset of crunching inside the office right at the very least I think the

biggest impact right there is that if you need to work those extra hours you can go home you know you can go home and do it in your own comforts and be able to still deliver if you want to write the crazy thing about this yeah you know one and you're finding this - right now that you're forced to self quarantine as you're listening to this I bet you everybody's pretty much in the same spot everybody is it kind of encouraged to basically indulge in all the things we're told not to do like social networking everyone's gonna be on Facebook everyone's gonna be watching Netflix everybody's gonna try out this shitty service called stadia for some reason and and most importantly try out these

games that they kind of been in queue in their wishlist on Steam are these other games that have been very time consuming people are gonna bust that out and enjoy at least this three weeks paid time off that most companies are giving their employees not just in the industry I know a lot of people in my network that have three weeks paid time off as the companies are regrouping the companies that can't afford it right and that's a good thing I think there's gonna be a huge boost for the game industry I you know we've been proven in 2008 to be sitt recession-proof and you know it's very clear that we're going into another recession with the stock drops and people kind of fear-mongering and honestly people being self Cornes here right now no one's going out there to spend molest you're buying it through Amazon door - food services delivery and all that stuff

people are really discouraged to go out right now I'm for people who are bored they usually turn to entertainment and spend money on us and streaming and and stuff like that so you're gonna see a major boost in that regard as an example you know I saw an article on disk ratting just the other day on Kotaku you mean that was a perfect opportunity for des Tran that gets second life I am curious to see if there's gonna be a uptick in cell and death Stratton just because of how relevant the subject is on what's happening right now all right the whole game is about an Amazon delivery guy who who or who is delivering goods to people who are social distancing themselves who won't leave their home because of the virus or some type of pandemic in how he'll help prophetic kijima is once again right

with with conditions so I'm gonna see I would love to see how how that game is getting some love where it did okay cell but not as great as Sony has hoped I hope that game gets gets picked up more by gamers now more than ever because I am pretty sure besides pandemic like games like death stranding that are getting played more now movies are being consumed in the same way just watching how all these movies been warning us about this danger and that's living it people are kind of sick that way so they kind of want to live it and kind of be constant reminder oh [ __ ] that's happening right now so thankfully we're not all stuck in a grocery store and kind of fighting amongst ourselves for a short supply not happening I am you know there are a lot of people kind of freaking out and that's the most dangerous part people in how they react to danger I'm more so

than in danger itself like in this case so be careful out there with all that but the industry as a whole I think there's a lot of games going to be played that has been kind of been like I said on the wish list gamers are gonna appreciate all these that they have overlooked which is good workers are gonna be appreciate even more funny enough as like a as a byproduct for for not being in the office right I mean that's a funny way to look at it but if you want to take away the person with the power self-worth you take away the people

working under that person within the office right it's kind of like a physical presence thing right just a man in the dictator inside an office suddenly looking around the room and there's no one there but everyone's through Skype right there's a sense of power that is taken away and so a lot of humility happens right and so I see in result of this workers are kind of appreciated more now that the numbers are kind of deafening you know games that are already out are gonna have an uptick in sales I think at least in play time right people are gonna play I saw the last month you need a Assassin's Creed unity which is been out for like six months or something right a lot of sold a shitload of copies because people are now are just really looking at ways

to kind of eat up the time games are in develop right now are gonna suffer first sure because it isn't just like a light switch like I mentioned that people could suddenly be efficient at home right there's a learning period of self-worth self-discipline and after that trial a very small percentage actually comes out on top and be able to show that hey remote workers are actually can actually be more efficient all right but most won't be able to make it I don't see those people being laid off I think there's there's a mutual understanding in this period that bosses are figuring things out too because in the same way workers are figuring out how to be efficient bosses are figuring out how to be a better manager through remote working because it hold it's a whole different piece not being able to walk by someone's desk and seeing the progress right there's a lot of trust involved and there's a lot of reliance

on technology to do all the things that we used to do physically right so there's there's a relationship there that needs to also be figured out for all companies and it's going to be a tough one men it's being home for the last year managing people and running a company that's been mostly managing people on mine you know I have like four or five years of experience on top of doing it with a full-time job at one period of my life to figure it out and I haven't figured it out yet right and it's me doing it full-time and so I with even more people to manage even more people to trust even more time and crazier deadlines to to me and then we're looking at at least the next two to three months of being at home I see a

lot of delays a lot of delays and it's good to remind ourselves that yeah August is what timeline is but people are gonna still have it there's gonna be some type of quarantine after August right now the numbers will go down most like it will hit our peak in and win dling but there's gonna still be some cautionary measures in place to make sure that it doesn't rise back up again right and well I mean hopefully you guys stay safe out there and you know here at blue champs I'm gonna continuously gonna be talking to people about how this is gonna affect because it's gonna change it's gonna change our industry for sure for all the reasons that I listed so it'd be interesting to

see how it changes a lot of my guesses I would love to confirm so starting next week I believe seeing the impact of all these conferences being delayed you know the indie developer it's the same way that we're starting to see these small businesses the restaurants the bars the gyms are all whatever right the economy half taking a hit don't know that what the results of that yet we can only guess how bad is gonna be for people that rely paycheck to paycheck month-to-month to pay the rent right you actually expose how poor health care system people have been clamoring about this for four years now now it's actually true I mean we're supposedly a first world nation but the way that we've been responding to a pandemic such as this I imagine that the corona virus was like eight so right as soon as you

get it you're dead and this is how we respond tip adem exhale sit would have been as a scary thought to kind of see how your government isn't set up or it has been so much ignored it has been so diluted where it isn't set up to be able to handle this type of situation that's a scary thought right and you know the rest of the year is gonna be we're seen we're gonna be seeing the ramen talking about at least Americans the ramifications of this Trump before was a clear winner man in my opinion I think there was a really good chance of being really being relayed re-elected but at this pace you know it's anybody's game it could be back to the Democrats again I'm not into politics I don't like even talking about politics but in terms of just the game industry and how we're seeing this the trajectory

of course kind of throwing off for the rest of the year I don't I'll be very surprised well maybe not right like maybe for the same reason I said people are gonna be at home people are gonna be up for for more gaming the ps5 the xbox supposedly right now it's actually being announced would love to against recap bring that back keep you guys entertained as you're sitting at home I keep you guys engaged with those news but it sounds like there's that they're still going as planned they're kind of they're kind of betting on people buying these systems by the new year don't know man don't know it so for people who are depending on their paycheck to paycheck this you know they will have three week paid time off but I don't know how long they you know companies are expected to do that that is not sustainable companies will eventually we're gonna

hear I think three weeks from now it's gonna start laying people off game is tree well game each tree is a different story right I don't know how they're gonna they have these deadlines they have these games they need the ship it wouldn't make any sense for them to start laying people off just because of this virus it's not their fault right it doesn't help them in any way to lay people off so I don't think the game industry in particular will lay people off they might have to try to leverage a lot of the remote workers that they're using right now as much as possible contract workers are still going to continue but that's a small percentage outsource development teams you know this is affecting worldwide right so these outsourced development teams still need to go in the office right are they set up for remote working so you know in all aspects it's not going to be as effective the question goes is unless you're a very big company that can take this type of hit time look like Disney

Activision EA all these guys that make billions each year and have a ton in reserve they might be able to weather the storm until the summer and slowly roll people back into the office and get these deadlines going because I don't think you know this is the first week right so they haven't usually Sprint's and deadlines are every two weeks to a month they haven't missed the deadline yet so they're not freaking out yet I would love to talk to those people I think I'll reach out to friends the next couple of weeks games that are supposed to deliver but in the year that are crunching right now we'll love to kind of get more insight about or you hate guys hitting the deadlines with people not being in the office most likely not right if they are amazing but most aren't able to do that so I don't think people are gonna be laid off in our industry but other companies other industries they're you're gonna start hearing people losing their jobs because

you know these companies aren't set up in a way where they can take these type of losses where no there's no patrons going to the restaurants going to the small business buying that you weren't ready for this they weren't prepared for this so small businesses are probably going to close and it's gonna start with people losing the job and just it gets scary right now it's right now it's scary I don't get me wrong practice caution you know get some supplies that last you a month so you don't have to go out as much but the scary part is going out in a month right when you start hearing people losing their jobs and they can't pay their rent right or they can't buy their food right that you're gonna see a lot of people doing [ __ ] it and you see some looting yeah that's where you can get it see area and banks right especially in a month

and two or now I'm just guessing right based on history banks are gonna ban people from taking their money out because if everybody you know they're not set up for everybody to take out their money at the same time so eventually if this keeps getting worse where people aren't being paid or are getting laid off people are gonna try to pull their money cash out of the bank the banks are gonna be forced to ban people from pulling money on their bank and people are gonna keep going more of a [ __ ] mode so that's how bad pandemics can go right and we're at the beginning stages of it and as soon as the test kits are available for everybody to kind of go through a drive-thru and we see that huge numbers jump right I mean we're already seeing a surge and this is without and this is with 90% of people being turned away

from doing testing symptoms or no symptoms right that's a scary thing about this virus you can still have the virus and be a carrier with no symptoms so there's a lot of people but has it meant you're most likely having it right now and so we're right now it's cool right now of anything you you'll have long lines to get supplies sure because it's the first weekend where we have a national lockdown over wait for that to die down go out there get your supplies but a month from now you know gamers are used to being indoors I see us handling this just fine for a sanity we're probably gonna get more gamers to be honest while putting them into the industry be consumers right I think more people are gonna be up for it but a month from now when one thing gets when

it's I think starts to get really bad and when people are starting free you know where companies are facing the reality that this is not just gonna be a two-week to four week thing that people can't keeping paid sick leave or whatever they're gonna have to stop paying people that is when it gets scary and that's a real thing that that's something to think about so be ahead of the curve I say people who are thinking this is all hype or thinking this is not a big deal are behind the curve and the virus itself is not that crazy right I mean it is bad but it's not AIT's bad right it's just a really severe symptom of flu and cold right if your body weren't able to handle that before you're in real danger for sure but it's the hysteria around people how are people the economy right

has long-term effects people who are not going out and all those shops can they survive the storm right most can't and you know workers are not gonna have a job and when you don't have a job money you can't pay the bills the bills are still coming so this is why everyone's kind of like what the [ __ ] United States right and understand ISO is this is a exposure you know all these warnings before we ignore because we would kind of been doing what we've been doing just fine but now that you know danger is kind of outside of our own hands right you don't have any say when your workplace just lays you off this is the stuff what game didn't chain is all about all right this is what I've been warning about for the last four or five years as soon as your full-time job says stop coming in what do you do for income and not just that we see that the

discipline and being able to freelance and find your own money on the side are gonna be very helpful for people who are transitioning suddenly into remote working right you already prepped for this so those people are gonna strive I think again this is my more my thoughts about what your neighbors who are not in the industry are gonna be facing which is scary right we're surrounded by these maniacs inside the game industry I feel like we're largely unaffected because a lot of stuff we can do digitally online just fine and deliver the goods it's just there's a learning period it's gonna take some time so the industry will take a hit in terms of again meeting deadlines but I think we're going to recover faster than other industries you know we don't have people needing to go to movie theaters right so the movie industry all those people are pretty much screwed for the time being for the rest of the year right a lot of movies are being pushed back a whole year because nobody's expecting it for

anybody to go back into theaters by September or anything right but the game industry I feel so recession-proof it's just there's a whole different type of thinking I think we're transitioning everybody's more open to it management are forced to be open to it but they'll get around to seeing how it can be beneficial and and so like the the hard hitters are going to shine the people who have been doing this for a while secretly on the side hustling can really show their strength and being able to kind of do five hours of work in three hours right and have most of their time to yourself so for those people right champion for thank you and love that stuff where I keep doing that the rest of people are gonna struggle a bit a good percentage I feel won't be able to adapt other percentage will take some time to figure things out be their own IT guy I feel that that's the toughest hurdle just being able to be savvy enough to handle

this type of situation but in conclusion as I've been mumbling on I didn't think I can do a full hour but I did a full hour [Music] don't be behind the curve right it's not all it's not hype it's real the numbers don't and don't be concentrated on the death numbers especially your United States and saying that it's only in the hundreds or thousands it's actually a lot more severe than that because the test kits aren't even out there being a carrier is one thing and not no showing any symptom is another right so the test gets aren't really available even if you to go out even if you have some symptoms it's hard to kind of get tested won't be another few weeks till they have those done and so once we have this done you'll see the extreme numbers we're actually probably I anticipate five to ten times larger then confirmed cases that we have now most people have it and

once those numbers are in it's the quarantine is gonna be extended even further right so be ahead of the curve and it's not about like the supplies being run short it's like when you do you want to go out in a month when people are crazier that's the meat real dangerous for me that's where it's scary right like I'm not I'm not I'm not scared of the fact that suddenly there's no food in the grocery store right I mean some days there will be but every week all right it's gonna be supplied it's it's more about going out in a month and then seeing people super desperate because they don't have a job or they can't pay for the food right you don't want to be in that situation that's where it's scary so as my camera's freezing let me go ahead and reset this real quick as I'm saying this

it's been a full hour I think practicing caution is the best sourcing measure I think you should have at least two weeks to a month of food supply so you're not to go out as much because the news like if you are waiting for the news to tell you what to do it's gonna be too late that's the craziest weekend right if two weeks from now they're like oh my god the confirmed cases are a lot crazier if trump has to go out and tell you and you are finally reacting that and going to get the food but you don't want to go skip that weekend right have enough food for that week to pass by to go on a Thursday or something to get the food because if you go out that weekend you're gonna be stomped you're gonna be pushed and I think three weeks to a lot of these places have three weeks paid sick leave what they're gonna do after those three

weeks pay close attention to that because it could be other most likely bad news or worsen is right there's no good news after three weeks there's no way companies can sustain this of being a company businessman myself if I can't pay you I can't pay right so I'm not saying this is bad on company it's just the reality no one's coming in to buy the product how can I keep paying you right and some companies have surplus of money where they can keep doing the right thing but most don't right and then they're gonna have to cut their losses and people are gonna be on out on their own this it's gonna be scary right and that's gonna happen hopefully you guys are secure enough that live in a safe area where you don't have to face that reality right in the meantime I'll definitely keep you guys updated on whatever things I find out about I'm gonna be talking to more of my industry friends to see how they're

doing with their deadlines because I am very curious about that because that is the beginning of what could be a really cool thing or just a beginning of a really rough period until they figure things out so but that being said I want to thank you guys for joining me live and listening to this episode I just want to give you an up-to-date look of how this can affect the industry and next week I believe let me check real quick renege kittens I keep mentioning it let me just make sure she's executive director of IG DEA and they're doing a lot of efforts on reacting to a lot of these conferences being cancelled and I think I mentioned this before at least in the roundtable last week with Ray and Richard that that offsets a lot of plans not just for the

big games that I'm talking about but the small games even more the same way that small businesses can't handle this kind of like pause would love to kind of have her on to kind of talk more about its long-term effect because these games are looking to sell at the this year but are not having any places to kind of market they rely on these conventions to kind of make some noise right now it's kind of like impossible so we're gonna look at the long-term and short-term effects of that and looking forward to next week talking to her thank you guys for joining me on twitch as always TV forward slash blue underscore champs if you're watching this you're probably watching this on YouTube calm for slash du champs and if you're listening to this the oh geez the podcast listener so you can always find game day luncheon on Spotify or

iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts thank you guys and I am out of here [Music] you [Music]