The popular pandemic simulator Plague Inc. was released for mobile devices in 2012, with the updated Plague Inc. Evolved coming to Steam in 2016. Despite its antiquity, the game hit an all-time high of 8452 concurrent players today, according to Steam Charts, far surpassing the previous record of 4601 set in April 2018 and the highest average concurrent player count over the past 30 days.

The reason for this is simple, if somewhat morbid. Curiosity due to the coronavirus outbreak, and according to a BBC report (via Eurogamer), the mobile version of Plague Inc was enough to push it to the top of the Chinese app charts earlier this week, despite its stale nature. So high was the demand that the developer Ndemic Creations' website and Plague Inc's servers were actually forced offline, but now appear to be back up and running.

With the increased interest, Ndemic Creations released a statement reminding people that while Plague Inc. is cool, it is just a game. [Plague Inc. has been on the market for 8 years now and with each disease outbreak the number of players increases.

"We specifically designed the game to be realistic and informative while not sensationalizing serious real-world issues. This has been recognized by the CDC and other major medical organizations around the world. However, please remember that "Plague Inc." is a game, not a scientific model, and that the current coronavirus epidemic is a very real situation affecting a very large number of people. Players are always advised to get information directly from local and global health authorities.

Ndemic Creations also provides a link to the World Health Organization's coronavirus web page.