A look at gaming across society, culture and politics

Tamer Asfahani Editor-in-Chief

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WELCOME to the latest issue of Checkpoint Magazine and welcome to all our new subscribers, we’re so glad you could make it and are enjoying the magazine. Before we get into it, there’s some housekeeping that we need to address. First of all, we’ve shifted our schedule a little as a result of the global outbreak (although it’s not yet officially endemic, we predict it will be within a few weeks) of Covid-19, or the coronavirus. We thought it might be more appropriate to tackle the issue of zombies in games as a result, you know. Globally we’re seeing ghost cities, travel bans and restrictions on gatherings for events. The most notable for us has been GDC this year, and we’ll come on to that a little bit later on. But the Geneva Motorshow has also been cancelled and there are bans in France for gatherings over 5000 people. This is a pretty serious thing, but the scariest thing about Covid-19 is its long incubation period and the fact that it is highly contagious. So please, do be careful and vigilant. Currently, and with the statistics we have access to, we know that there is a mortality rate of around three percent, and (as far as we know) there has to be underlying health issues for it to be deemed as dangerous.