The DeanBeat: How the rest of 2020 looks for the game industry

The main reason for this column today is to wish you a happy Fourth of July and thank you for reading GamesBeat and VentureBeat. So thanks, and go blow things up in a safe and sane way (maybe inside video games). I like this holiday because it marks the middle of the year, and in some ways it gives us hope that the next six months can be better.

So far, 2020 has been horrible. We have our wild politics, made so much worse by the pandemic. We had the tragic death of George Floyd, with Black Lives Matter protests following (and continuing). The #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements are having an impact on the game industry, which saw hundreds of sexual misconduct complaints detailing toxic behavior at all levels, from game development to influencers. Ubisoft announced an action plan to address misconduct yesterday, and the Evo fighting game tournament canceled its 2020 online event as a result of its own abuse scandal. We can’t yet predict the full impact of allegations across the industry.