# Plague Inc. Plague Inc. is a mobile strategy game from Ndemic Creations where players engineer a pathogen to wipe out humanity, released in 2012[1]. It became Reddit meme fodder in 2018 when players started joking about Madagascar closing its borders and Greenland being impossible to infect, feeding a wave of screenshots and edits that peaked with a viral anti-vaxxer petition in early 2019[3]. ## Origin Plague Inc. was created and published by Ndemic Creations, inspired by the 2008 Flash game Pandemic II by Dark Realm Studios[3]. It launched for iOS on May 26, 2012 and for Android that October, with a Metacritic listing that catalogued strong reviews of the mobile release[1]. The game passed 85 million downloads before Ndemic released Plague Inc. Evolved on Steam, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2015[3]. The meme angle came later. Reddit users started posting Plague Inc. screenshots as jokes about closed borders and stubborn islands around 2018, with Madagascar becoming its own running gag for locking down before any disease could get in[3]. The video walkthrough embedded on the Know Your Meme entry is a representative early example of the gameplay footage that got recycled into edits and reaction posts[2]. - **Platform:** Mobile game (source) / Reddit (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2018 ## Overview The Plague Inc. meme format leans on two running jokes from the game's mechanics. Players spent years struggling to infect Madagascar and Greenland because both countries have limited sea and air routes, so any global outbreak tends to stall at their borders[3]. Screenshots of failed runs and edited menu shots became shorthand for the game's absurd difficulty, and by 2018 the joke was spilling onto /r/memes and /r/me_irl as reaction posts about closed borders and stubborn islands. A second wave of jokes tied the game's upgrade system to real-world debates about vaccines and pandemic response. Urban Dictionary entries from the period define Plague Inc. as 'what you say when a pandemic occurs in real life,' which captures the tone[4]. The humor stayed absurdist: treat the game's transmission vectors and symptoms as a lens for whatever health-policy fight was in the feed that week. ## How to Use The common convention is to screenshot a moment from Plague Inc. that mirrors a real headline, then caption it. Typical setups include an in-game news ticker announcing Madagascar has closed its ports, a failed run where Greenland stayed disease-free, or an edited symptoms tree that swaps upgrade names for real-world talking points. Posts often include the game's menu UI to make the reference legible at a glance. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Plague Inc.? A real-time strategy game where you engineer a disease and try to wipe out humanity, released by Ndemic Creations in 2012[1]. It became a Reddit meme around 2018 for its Madagascar and Greenland gags[3]. ### Where did Plague Inc. come from? Ndemic Creations built it, drawing on the 2008 Flash game Pandemic II by Dark Realm Studios, and released it on iOS in May 2012[3]. ### What does Plague Inc. mean? The name is the in-game brand for the disease-engineering scenario, and online it's used as shorthand for 'this real-world outbreak feels like a Plague Inc. run'[4]. ### How do you use Plague Inc.? As a meme, people post in-game screenshots (usually Madagascar closing ports or a failed Greenland infection) captioned with a real-world headline they mirror[3]. ### Is Plague Inc. still popular? The game is a classic mobile title with over 85 million downloads and a console version from 2015[3], and the Madagascar and anti-vaxxer memes still circulate as older Reddit references[3]. ## References 1. [https://www.metacritic.com/game/ios/plague-inc]() 2. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c5U1bqk1Bg]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/plague-inc]() 4. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Plague%20Inc]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/plague-inc Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library