The Impact of Games during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Dear Colleagues,

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on global societies. In contrast to many other economic sectors that are drastically affected by the pandemic, the video game industry has been far more resilient to the pandemic. But while industry events that were canceled, such as Gamescom or E3, left the community at home in front of their own screen, eSport events boomed. The American NASCAR series or Formula 1 allowed their racing drivers to compete against each other or other eSport athletes on virtual tracks. Another advantage was that the industry has always been digital in virtual worlds and has thus been able to efficiently cope with home offices and other challenges. The enormous demand for entertaining content due to the global lockdowns was another boost for the industry. Also worth mentioning: Online games in particular can serve as a particularly good substitute for social interactions and so Discord, TeamSpeak, Twitch, and Co had to replace going to the pub together.

In this Special Issue we seek contributions that address those issues. A special focus is on the impact COVID-19 had on societies. Therefore, we invite you to submit:

• an article
• a conceptual paper or
• a review

that address the topic of the Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Kai Erenli
Dr. Christopher Kronenberg
Dr. Thorsten Haendler
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.