No 'us-versus-them mentality': Creator of Pandemic says board game has lessons for how to approach COVID-19
CBC Radio | Posted: March 18, 2020 6:00 PM | Last Updated: March 18, 2020
Board game Pandemic requires players to work together, not against each other
The creator of Pandemic says the collaborative nature of the board game could offer lessons in fighting the global COVID-19 outbreak.
"Unlike a lot of other games where you're working against each other, in Pandemic all the players work together to try to beat the game, essentially — you're working against the disease," said Matt Leacock, a California-based game designer.
Pandemic was released as a board game in 2008, and later turned into a video game. Players are assigned characters such as scientists, medics and researchers, and must travel around a world map dealing with outbreaks of diseases, before they grow to overwhelm the globe.
"The game is really all about worldwide community co-operation and working together, it doesn't have an us-versus-them mentality," he told The Current's Matt Galloway.
The early days of the outbreak saw political divisions slow the response in some countries. In the U.S., Republicans downplayed the threat for weeks. President Donald Trump declared a U.S. state of emergency last week.
"When you look at a lot of what's talked about and the political situation around the world, people are throwing a lot of blame," Leacock said.
"When really what we need to be doing is coming together and figuring out how we can work on this big problem together."
Leacock says he initially came up with the game while the 2003 SARS outbreak was in the news, as he thought "viruses seem like a really good antagonist."
But he also wanted to create a collaborative game he could play with his wife.
"We had played negotiation games in the past, and they did not go real well," he said.
But with collaborative games, "we always got along great, and felt good whether we won or lost."
Game-playing strategy
Leacock says the key to winning the game is balancing strategy, and effective communication.
"There's pockets of infected populations around the world, and your knee-jerk response is to run around like crazy, trying to take care of every small emergency," he explained.
"But if you do that, you're going to lose."
Instead, the focus should be on co-operation, and managing resources effectively to find a cure, he said.
"It takes a good mix of short-term thinking, and long-term thinking and a lot of communication," he said.
"Everybody has their own unique skill and it takes everybody kind of working together and taking advantage of each player's strengths in order to to win."
Written by Padraig Moran. Produced by Matt Meuse.