COVID-19 outbreak, a series of game developers closed their offices, allowing employees to work from home

Epidemic COVID-19 continues to boom and cause a lot of damage to the game industry today, even the Game Developers Conference that was supposed to take place last week was forced to be postponed. Fear Coronavirus will spread in King County, Washington (USA), both Microsoft and Bungie – 2 companies based in this area were forced to close their offices and let employees work from home.​

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In a message sent yesterday, Microsoft vice president Kurt DelBene encouraged employees at Redmond’s headquarters and the Bay Area office to work from home until March 25. Although some did, some positions that require company visits such as data center employees and retail locations are not covered by this plan but if the employee is over 60 years old, pregnant, or has potential health risks You can still ask your company to allow you to work from home online. Microsoft also shared that the company is still following CDC guidelines to clean these areas, ensuring a healthy working environment for employees.​

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Bungie – game developer based in Bellevue, Washington, said that due to the threat of the Corona virus spreading in this area, Bungie has implemented remote working infrastructure, ensuring the safety of employees. employees and maintain the growth of the company, especially with Destiny 2 and upcoming additions. Although there are some changes in the way Bungie works, the company temporarily keeps the release date of Destiny 2 Extended Seasons (March 10) and Trials of Osiris (March 13).

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King County is located in central Washington, and includes some of the state’s largest cities such as Seattle, Bellevue, Kent, and Redmond. According to new figures updated this morning, currently the US has recorded 221 people infected with Covid-19, 12 people have died. Of which 31 infections and 9 deaths come from King County, the precautions taken by Microsoft and Bungie at the moment are absolutely necessary. In King County there are also offices of many other developers such as Valve and NintendoTemporarily, these companies have not made any announcements about allowing employees to work online to limit the spread.​