Coronavirus & Games Industry: GDC Off But E3 Still On
The Game Developers Conference has been postponed due to Coronavirus concern, but E3 so far remains unchanged.
Over the weekend, GDC organisers issued the following statement:
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.
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.
We want to thank all our customers and partners for their support, open discussions and encouragement. As everyone has been reminding us, great things happen when the community comes together and connects at GDC. For this reason, we fully intend to host a GDC event later in the summer. We will be working with our partners to finalize the details and will share more information about our plans in the coming weeks.
The decision to postpone comes after many of the games industry’s major players announced they would no longer participate in GDC. PlayStation, Facebook, Electronic Arts, Capcom and Square Enix withdrew early last week. Xbox, Amazon, Epic, Unity and Activision-Blizzard followed suit, dropping out by the end of the week.
The other big games industry event on the global calendar, E3, is scheduled to be held in Los Angeles in June. E3 organiser, the Entertainment Software Association, told Game Informer that it is monitoring the situation but its E3 plans remain unaffected.
“Everyone is watching the situation very closely. We will continue to be vigilant, as our first priority is the health, wellness and safety of all of our exhibitors and attendees. Given what we know at this time, we are moving ahead full speed with E3 2020 planning. Exhibit and registration sales are on track for an exciting show in June.”
GDC is the games industry’s premier professional event, held annually in San Francisco. As well as talks and workshops run by programmers, artists and designers, it hosts the Game Developers Choice Awards and the Independent Games Festival.