Game Developers Conference aka GDC 2020 is planning to start on March 16th in San Francisco, California. Although at this point it seems quite possible that the conference will not happen at all. Previously, Sony, Facebook, Kojima Productions and Electronic Arts have announced that they will not be coming to GDC and now the news comes from Unity, Microsoft and Epic Games as well.
After much thought and deliberation, Unity made the decision to change their plans about attending GDC 2020 due to Coronavirus concerns:
We’re advising all employees to refrain from traveling to GDC. We will no longer have a physical presence with a booth, but will instead showcase the great GDC content we’ve been working towards online. Expect more details in the coming weeks.
Similarly, after doing a review of guidance by global health authorities and out of an abundance of caution, Microsoft decided to withdraw from participating. The company will instead hold a digital-only event March 16-18th held on www.microsoft.com/gamestack. This event will feature the majority of our planned game developer sessions and experiences, which will be streamed live and available on demand.
The health and safety of players, developers, employees, and our partners around the world is our top priority. Especially as the world is experiencing growing public health risks associated with coronavirus (COVID-19).
The last but not the least is Epic and their announcement:
Here at Epic we were excited about participating in GDC 2020. Regrettably, uncertainty around health concerns has made it unviable to send our employees, and so we have made the difficult decision to withdraw attendance.
Stay tuned for Epic news and more through other channels.
— Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine) February 27, 2020
