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Animal Crossing<\/strong><\/p>\nNo adversaries or competition in \u201cAnimal Crossing: New Horizons\u201d which came out in March for Nintendo\u2019s Switch console. Instead players explore an island, collecting fruit and making tools and furniture, trading with others, as the seasons slowly change.<\/p>\n
This version of the game certainly hit the spot with players hungry for a bit of light-hearted diversion. It powered to the top of the sales charts in the United States in March 2020, and was among top sellers in other countries as well. It was the number two title in Europe for 2020 overall, according to GfK.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe smashing success of Animal Crossing is explained by two factors: one is an underlying trend towards family games and the other is the short-term factor of the confinement,\u201d said Nicolas Vignolles, head of the association of French video game publisher association SELL.<\/p>\n
He said parents suddenly confronted with being confined with their children looked to video games to find options for family\u00a0entertainment, and that \u201cAnimal Crossing was an ideal game for parent-child interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nintendo\u2019s chief in France, Philippe Lavoue, has acknowledged the firm\u2019s lucky timing of releasing the game just as many people were needing an escape.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we were happy to have helped confined people feel less lonely and to escape mentally,\u201d he told the French newspaper Le Figaro.<\/p>\n
The success of \u201cAmong Us\u201d in 2020 was a big surprise for the industry as the title drew little attention when was originally released in 2018.<\/p>\n
But its developers at US studio Innersloth kept refining their concept, which paid off when some prominent game streamers on Twitch began to play it on the platform in mid-2020.<\/p>\n
By November the game had half a billion players, according to Superdata, which monitors the gaming industry.<\/p>\n
The online multiplayer game takes place on a space ship. Most people are crewmates but several are imposters who are out to kill or at least block crewmates from carrying out their assigned tasks. Lively debates take place as crewmates seek to unmask the imposters.<\/p>\n
The game\u2019s popularity has even seen US lawmakers join in matches broadcast on Twitch in an effort to reach young voters last year.<\/p>\n
For French game publisher Nicolas Vignolles it is the exchanges between players that explains the game\u2019s popularity.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmong Us at the intersection of social networking and video games,\u201d he said, noting that nearly one in two gamers in France say that video games help them create social relationships.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat didn\u2019t exist before\u2026 This underlying trend has accelerated with confinement,\u201d said Vignolles.<\/p>\n
Ring Fit Adventure<\/h2>\n
If working out and playing video games are usually two contradictory activities, \u201cRing Fit Adventure\u201d brings them together.<\/p>\n
The game works with the Switch console, whose controllers are slotted into a Pilates ring and a leg strap.<\/p>\n
Once equipped, players can fight against monsters or be guided through fitness routines by the television.<\/p>\n
The closure of gyms along with lockdowns fuelled a spike in sales, leading to shortages last year after consumers snapped up four million units between October 2019 and July 2020.<\/p>\n
FIFA 2021<\/h2>\n
The halt to many football matches and the postponement of the Euro championship may have sparked interest among fans to play virtually. According to GfK, FIFA 2021 from Electronic Arts was the best-selling video game in 2020.<\/p>\n
Board and card games<\/h2>\n
If chess boards and Uno cards graced the tables of many households more frequently during lockdowns, their video games versions did as well.<\/p>\n
A sign of that is a collection of classic board games for Switch was among the top sellers for the console in France last year, Nintendo told Le Figaro.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big lesson of confinement was that video games have broken definitively the stereotype of a game that can cause people to withdraw and become isolated,\u201d said Nicolas Vignolles.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were an incredibly effective antidote to isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You\u2019re stuck in lockdown but that doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t visit a tropical island, a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"yoast_head":"\n