PlayStation, Facebook Gaming, and Oculus will not be attending the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2020 citing the outbreak of coronavirus. GDC 2020 is scheduled to take place from the 16th to the 20th of March in San Francisco, California.
“We have made the difficult decision to cancel our participation in Game Developers Conference due to increasing concerns related to COVID-19 (also known as coronavirus). We felt this was the best option as the situation related to the virus and global travel restrictions are changing daily. We are disappointed to cancel our participation, but the health and safety of our global workforce is our highest concern. We look forward to participating in GDC in the future.”, Sony told GamesIndustry.biz.
Facebook has also published an official statement regarding the matter. “Out of concern for the health and safety of our employees, our dev partners, and the GDC community, Facebook will not be attending this year’s Game Developer Conference due to the evolving public health risks related to COVID-19,” a Facebook spokesperson said.
Oculus will still make announcements online along with Q&A sessions. “We still plan to share the exciting announcements we had planned for the show through videos, online Q&As, and more, and will plan to host GDC partner meetings remotely in the coming weeks.”, the spokesperson added.
Organizers of the GDC event have taken various measures including the use of disinfecting electrostatic sprayers in high-traffic areas, frequent wiping in all common areas, increased hand sanitizer stations, daily carpet sanitization to ensure the safety of the attendees.
In case you’re unaware, GSMA – the organizers of MWC 2020 had taken similar pro-active measures to prevent any potential impact of coronavirus. However, they had to cancel the event as all leading brands withdrew their presence from the event. It appears like GDC is going down the same lane and it is possible that the event could get canceled now that major players in the gaming segment like PlayStation and Oculus are out.
from Beebom https://beebom.com/playstation-and-facebook-to-skip-gdc-2020-due-to-coronavirus-outbreak/
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