Israeli gaming company, industry leaders launch campaign with WHO
"As part of this important response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Playtika is fully committed to helping people worldwide stay safe and feel connected."
By AARON REICHA message from the mobile game 'Pearl's Peril' from Playtika's studio Wooga encourages users to stay at home but to socialize with friends in-game.(photo credit: PLAYTIKA STUDIO WOOGA)
Israeli mobile gaming company Playtika is one of 18 video game companies taking part in the global #PlayApartTogether campaign to encourage gamers to follow the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines to help stem the spread of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.Other industry leaders taking part in the initiative include Activision Blizzard, Glu Mobile, Big Fish Games, Riot Games, Unity Technology, YouTube Gaming and Twitch, as well as several of Playtika’s studios.The Herzliya-based mobile gaming company is one of the pioneers of modern casual gaming, and was one of the first to offer free-to-play games on social networks. Their mobile games are some of the most popular around, and can boast 30 million active users playing their titles each month.As part of the campaign, Playtika is aiming to boost social engagement among its users through in-game incentives in its variety of titles. This goal of this initiative is to help foster social interaction and a sense of community among Playtika’s 30 million-strong userbase.“At Playtika, we believe that play is an integral part of life, even in the toughest of times,” Playtika CEO Robert Antokol said in a statement. “We are proud to promote messages by the World Health Organization and to join this coalition of games industry leaders to support the #PlayApartTogether campaign. As part of this important response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Playtika is fully committed to helping people worldwide stay safe and feel connected.”“The #PlayApartTogether campaign is a very good opportunity to leverage our strength with our players, give back to the community and work with other industry leaders and the WHO,” Laura Keren, Playtika vice president of marketing, told The Jerusalem Post. “We encourage people to play with others and not only play by themselves. It’s a balance of providing social interaction since you can’t go socialize in person.“We’re giving out different incentives for increased in-game social interaction depending on the game,” she explained. “We give coins, cards, extra time to play, reduced wait time and more daily bonuses. In addition, we also encourage community challenges. For instance, many of our titles have a clan feature, where different people can take part in challenges with 10 other people and they can receive a lot of prizes, depending on the game.”Community has always been an important aspect of Playtika’s games, and boosting that sense of community is a large part of the #PlayApartTogether initiative.“One problem is that people feel isolated. A lot of our players are older and live alone, and loneliness is already a pandemic before coronavirus, so social games are a way to get people social,” Keren told the Post.“We have a lot of social communities around our games. People make friends and some even got married though our games.... There are a lot of relationships that come alive in gaming communities.”
However, Playtika’s commitment to help its users stay strong and amid the ongoing crisis extends beyond simply offering in-game incentives for social interaction, but also extends to help raise awareness of WHO guidelines for staying safe.“Most of our 30 million players are very engaged, and it’s a big challenge for the WHO to convey their message and help people understand the importance of this. So we find that it’s very helpful to work with our players to help convey their messages,” Keren added.“Different games put the different WHO guidelines in different contexts depending on the game. You can also see different messages in different tones and styles. For instance, in Pirate Kings, we say ‘Pirates always keep a distance.’ Loot in Pirate Kings can also be toilet paper now. June’s Journey encourages people to take coffee breaks and wash your hands. We try to take a humorous approach. Not everything is humor, of course, but it’s always in the tone and style of the game.“We’re not the WHO, we’re not trying to lecture. Rather, we’re trying to entertain people even in the hardest of times.”When asked how long they plan to keep up these incentives for their players, Keren answered: “as long as the situation continues.“It’s a very volatile situation with more news coming out every day,” she told the Post, “and we’re trying to give back to our community for as long as we can.”
