The Game Developers Conference 2020 is being postponed to the summer. The March event was cancelled in light of the mounting fears and concerns over the Coronavirus.
The statement from the organizers was posted up over on the official website on February 28th, 2020, where they explained…
“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.”
They go on to say that the event has been pushed back to late summer but don’t offer any dates or specific release windows on when potential attendees can expect the 2020 GDC to take place.
According to IGN, there has been no mention of refunds for those who already booked tickets, and this comes after Microsoft, Epic Games, Kojima Productions, Oculus/Facebook, Electronic Arts, and PlayStation all pulled out of attending. IGN went on to explain that the government is currently monitoring more than 8,400 cases of the coronavirus in North California…
“In Northern California, the state government announced that it was monitoring 8,400 people for COVID-19. Since GDC is hosted in San Francisco, California today’s news of canceling the show is a logical precaution.”
Valve was also scheduled to attend the event, but announced that the events they had scheduled will be cancelled but they will make their speaking presentations available for viewing online.
In lieu of speaking in SF, we plan to record our presentation and make it available online instead. More info on that to come!
— Steamworks (@Steamworks) February 29, 2020
Many gamers and anime fans are also hoping that eventually the coronavirus will result in the 2020 Olympics set to take place in Tokyo, Japan will also be cancelled. The Olympics would only disrupt Japan’s culture, result in a spike in crimes, and the potential of a lot of Leftist attempting to force their regressive and censorious views on Japan. Forfeiting any opportunity to have Westerners corrupting Japan would retain the quality and purity of Japanese culture, especially when it comes to video games and anime.
Given that the West is already converged and AAA gaming is lost, having the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California postponed (with the potentiality of being permanently cancelled) is just icing on the cake.
(Thanks for the news tip Guardian Evaunit02 and KotakuInAction 2)