Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, countries implemented lockdowns and travel bans which had severe negative impact on the tourism industry while video game playtime spiked as more people spent time indoors. Campaigns such as #PlayApartTogether, initiated by the World Health Organisation in collaboration with game publishers, encouraged social engagement through video games to promote social distancing. In June 2018, WHO added “gaming disorder” to the list of mental illnesses in the International Classification of Diseases, despite debates in the field on whether this could instead be a product of underlying mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and loneliness, which video games are being used to alleviate. This is a series of photographs taken in the video games that I visited over the first 72 days in social isolation.
