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Earlier this week, we reported on how multiple game developers and publishing studios have pulled out of planned Game Developers Conference appearances. These studios cancelled their plans due to fears about the growing coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic. Today, three other major studios announced that they have also pulled out of going to this year's GDC event.
The first announcement today came from Microsoft. The company shared the announcement through their developer website. The studio says that "the health and safety of players, developers, employees, and our partners around the world is our top priority.(...) In light of this, we plan to move our presence to a digital-only event March 16-18th held on http://www.gamestack.com/."
Microsoft says that this digital-only event will still feature a "majority" of the content and presentations they were going to share live at GDC. In addition, this content will be both streamed live and available on demand for those who may not be able to watch live.
A short time after Microsoft's announcement came an announcement from Epic Games. The company, by way of their Unreal Engine Twitter account, also said that they will no longer be taking part in GDC.
Around 6:20PM (ET), Iron Galaxy Studios also announced that they were cancelling their GDC plans. They, like the other companies discussed, say that they are placing the health and safety of their own employees above all else.
These companies and studios join others like Square Enix, Sony, and Facebook in cancelling their GDC plans. The Game Developers Conference for 2020 is still apparently scheduled to start on March 16. At this point however, it may take less time to list who all is still going rather than list those who have cancelled their plans.
There are a number of resources at your disposal to stay up to date on COVID-19 including the Center for Disease Control and Prevention at CDC.gov and the World Health Organization at WHO.int.
