GDC postponed to later this year over coronavirus concerns
This year’s annual Game Developers Conference has been postponed amid growing concern about the international coronavirus outbreaks. The event, which has run since 1988, was expected to take place from March 16th–20th in San Francisco.
“After close consultation with our partners in the game development industry and community around the world, we’ve made the difficult decision to postpone the Game Developers Conference this March,” reads a note posted to the official GDC post Friday evening. “Having spent the past year preparing for the show with our advisory boards, speakers, exhibitors, and event partners, we’re genuinely upset and disappointed not to be able to host you at this time.”
The GDC organizers say they “fully intend to host a GDC event later in the summer,” and that the “we will be working with our partners to finalize the details and will share more information about our plans in the coming weeks.” The organization behind the conference, exhibition company Informa, intends to refund attendees the cost of tickets, although it’s unclear if a system will be in place to secure attendance at the planned summer version of the conference.
In the weeks leading up to GDC, companies like Sony, Facebook, Electronic Arts, Kojima Productions, Unity, Amazon, and Epic all withdrew their attendance. Each cited health and safety concerns regarding the event. All of GDC’s China-based exhibitors also pushed their attendance to 2021, while China-based conference attendees would not be present. Organizers also announced that it would expand its flu season protocol to include additional sanitation measures.
GDC “postponed”
– all tickets refunded (will take time to process)
– speakers invited to submit their talks for them to be distributed free online in the coming
– some events will be organised still, but purely online, streamed on Twitch pic.twitter.com/JYw7EjD7E6— Thomas Bidaux GDC (@icotom) February 29, 2020
A spokesperson previously told The Verge that, as of February 25th, the conference would move forward as planned. In order to better prepare for potential infections, San Francisco’s mayor declared a state of emergency for the city.
San Francisco itself has yet to have any confirmed cases; at least one Californian from Solano County has contracted the illness from an unknown source. Events such as PAX East also lost several exhibitors due to coronavirus concerns. Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest mobile trade show, was canceled this year in mid-February, while Facebook canned its F8 developer conference February 27th.
GDC caters to a variety of game industry professionals and journalists. Last year, it hit record attendance with more than 29,000 people.
Developing…
This year’s annual Game Developers Conference has been postponed amid growing concern about the international coronavirus outbreaks. The event, which has run since 1988, was expected to take place from March 16th–20th in San Francisco. “After close consultation with our partners in the game development industry and community around the…
