With so many people stuck inside, video games are blowing up. Not just playing them either; watching people play them is growing more popular by the day. And Facebook wants in on the action.
They join three other big players in the market for video game streaming: Amazon (Twitch), Microsoft (Mixer), and Google (Youtube).
What happens if the lockdown exists long enough for live sports leagues to go bankrupt? Could e-sports take off, drawing the huge crowds and gambling from before?
This could bring about a Ready Player One-style book about a gamer who rises to prominence by being good at that particular game. It could be about their struggles outside the game and how they can save their loved one (mother maybe?) if they win.
Or, there could also be an event that every platform would HAVE to stream to their subscribers?
The stakes would need to be high. No higher stakes than human life. So, if there are lives on the line, could this be a Hunger Games type stream? But that somehow is controlled by humans? There’s a movie called “Gamer” where death-row convicts have their minds controlled by human players. Of course, the winner gets to live in the end. Another version of this could work.
Another form of high stakes could be the love of the country. If war was decided in simulations the streaming platforms would have to show everyone what was happening. BUT there could be a partisan split among the broadcasters depending on which presidential candidate they back. In the end, it could be discovered that there is no war, that it’s just a made-up scenario to keep people foaming at the mouth and ignoring the state of the world around them. What they thought were real humans turned out to be the characters in video games, to be tweaked and brought back for the next “war” the country has to engage in.
