Fifa 20

While the threat of the new coronavirus continues to impact major events across the globe, video games remain just as safe and fun as ever, and real sports team are using this to their advantage in rather wonderful ways.

With all major English football leagues enforcing a temporary ceasefire until 3rd April, teams up and down the country have been using video games to simulate the matches that would have been taking place. Premier League side Watford, who should have played the mighty Leicester City over the weekend (we're not biased, we promise), shared a full match of Football Manager for fans to watch online. It ended up a 1-1 draw, and the video has racked up more than 700,000 views.

Jumping down a league to the Championship, Leeds United took things one step further. A full match of FIFA 20 was used to see how the team might have fared in their postponed match against Cardiff, with fans reacting in real-time on Facebook. The Leeds United Twitter account even posted highlights in real-time, just like it would during a real game.

Southampton got in on the act, too, hosting another FIFA 20 match to play out their game against Norwich, and Gillingham managed to win a whopping 16-0 in their postponed FIFA match. We're not sure the real game would have played out quite like that.

Of course, it's not just football teams who have been playing more and more games while being stuck at home. Steam reportedly hit the 20 million concurrent players mark over the weekend, and last week brought the news that online gaming has caused an internet data spike in Italy.

[source eurogamer.net]