The feared swine flu pandemic may be fizzling, but online games based on the H1N1 virus continue to proliferate. Today we'll look at two new offerings.
Based on simple keyboard movement system, Stop Swine Flu requires only that players maneuver their character near others and sneeze. Scoring is based on whether one's germs have infected a child, adult or senior citizen.
The game was commissioned by the Wellcome Trust, which the New York Times points out is the world's second largest charity, right behind The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Daniel Glaser, who heads special projects for the Wellcome Trust, told the NYT:
We did it to engage the older teen audience and teach them that where you sneeze matters. All the science is embedded in a contest that will look familiar to the YouTube generation.
[The idea of the game is] no sicker than Ring Around the Rosy, which is alleged to date from the time of the plague. People have always caught virus and died. I don’t think there’s anything inappropriate about it.
PC Authority points us to the simple-minded Swine Flu: Hamdemic which inexplicably challenges players to hurl pigs across the U.S. - Mexico border.
Comments
Re: Swine Flu Games Continue to Infect the Web
There's "Aporkalypse Now!" too - http://www.mousebreaker.com/games/pigfps
Re: Swine Flu Games Continue to Infect the Web
Be afraid...be very afraid.
PSN: bracomadar
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Re: Swine Flu Games Continue to Infect the Web
"The idea of the game is no sicker than Ring Around the Rosy, which is alleged to date from the time of the plague."
Actually, that's a myth.
Re: Swine Flu Games Continue to Infect the Web
Hey, remember when I said swine flu was nothing to be worried about and that the WHO and CDC were overblowing it? OH MAN. Right again.
Also, why the hell would a charity organization pay to have this crap made. Seriously, that sounds like a waste of valuable grant money that could go to, I don't know, useful research of some kind.
Re: Swine Flu Games Continue to Infect the Web
Was your argument based on expert opinion to which the WHO and CDC did not have access, or were you merely playing armchair virologist for political rather than scientific reasons?
I'm saying there's a difference between being right and knowing you're right.
Re: Swine Flu Games Continue to Infect the Web
Actually, it was based on the fact that, through the use of statistics, I found it to kill less people and infect less people than the run of the mill flu. Later on, virologists would confirm what I had realized to begin with, especially the one who said it lacks certain proteins that make it a less harmful virus. Can't find the link for it, but it was on yahoo news.
Plus, I know who has some stock in the company that makes Tamiflu, but that just lead me to realize that the USA would be wasting billions on it knowing we didn't need it.
Re: Swine Flu Games Continue to Infect the Web
Well, a lot of the damage was prevented by the alarms put out by the WHO, if they hadn't put out the warning, media sensationlism or not, then it probably would have been worse.
I'm pleased it doesn't look likely to reach world-wide pandemic stage, normally these things blossom far more explosively if there's a real risk of that, but awareness went a long way to making sure that didn't happen.
However, having scientists walk around saying 'we're about due a pandemic', as though Pandemics were things like Ice Ages, that couldn't be controlled by common sense and precaution, was a bit worrying, pandemics aren't timed events, they are the culmination of ignorance to the threat and insufficient hygeine, keep on top of those and you can go a long way towards preventing an outbreak.
Re: Swine Flu Games Continue to Infect the Web
I think it was more the media overblowing it than the WHO and CDC. Kinda like with SARS, bird flu, mad cow, etc.
-Gray17
Re: Swine Flu Games Continue to Infect the Web
The media wasn't the group that wasted 1.5 Billion dollars on Tamiflu. That was all the CDC and the WHO, claiming we were facing the next big pandemic.