


According to data from Google Trends, searches for “Jackbox” in 2020 (and related ones like “How to play Jackbox on Zoom”) reached an all-time high in late March and early April, and then again in November and December. Google saw a bump in search engine queries as well. We suddenly saw just a huge spike in traffic, both on our servers for people playing and to our website for people to find out about our games and to purchase our games,” said Bilder. “I would say it really took off in late March, early April. Jackbox’s employees were already working from home and were deep into development on Party Pack 7 when they first noticed a surge in activity in all their games. Image Credit: Jackbox Games Growing pains Jackbox’s party games weren’t originally designed with heavy online use in mind, so it had to work quickly to scale up its infrastructure and make sure the servers could handle all that demand. But that number grew exponentially as more regions around the world enacted strict stay-at-home measures. Prior to 2020, the developers knew that a small percentage of people (including online streamers) liked to play remotely, and they added moderation tools and other features to support remote play over the years. And I think that’s a testament to why so many more people are playing.” The fact that you can replicate that experience over a Zoom call, where you’re just sharing the screen during times when everybody’s in quarantine, is great,” said Jackbox Games CEO Mike Bilder. “The core tenets are always meant to bring out laughter and communication, get people talking and laughing and playing together. Suddenly, the Party Packs and the dozens of games spread among them became more than just a way of teasing your friends or making inside jokes: They provided players a much-needed outlet for socialization.
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Fans began utilizing video chat software like Zoom and Discord to play remotely. But after COVID-19 made in-person gatherings all but impossible, Jackbox players had to get more creative.
