Exploring the Impacts of COVID-19 on Digital and Metaverse Games

ABSTRACT

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has markedly changed the ways we live and the ways we play games. This is because the situations disrupted by the virus have forced so many people to quarantine and self-isolate. These can lead to many serious problems such as mental and physical health. At the same time, the metaverse, particularly virtual reality and augmented reality, has been very popular in the fields of human-computer interaction and computer science in recent years. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a new research work for exploring recent digital games inspired during the virus outbreak to support people in various aspects, such as entertaining people during the pandemic period, enhancing awareness among people about the virus, suggesting preventive measures against the spread of the virus. Next, more specifically, the impacts of COVID-19 on recent games from virtual and augmented realities are examined. We investigate metaverse games to support people during COVID-19 and the post-pandemic period, including enhancing the healthcare education toolkit, simulating health protection protocols, and supporting healthcare workers. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.