Epic Games has announced that the game studio will not be attending this year’s GDC 2020. In a tweet, the company has said that health concerns have made it unviable to send their employees at the event.
This s another example of the impact the Coronavirus is having in the gaming industry. Epic Games has followed in the steps of Microsoft, who have also announced that they will not be attending the event as well.
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.
The tweet does not specifically mention Coronavirus, but citing health risks, the company is obviously pointing at the epidemic that has recently spread all across the world, resulting in thousands of deaths worldwide.
GDC 2020 is massively getting affected as both Epic Games and Microsoft join the list of other big studios like EA, Unity, Kojima Productions, PlayStation, who have all opted out and will not be attending the event this year.
Yesterday, Microsoft released a statement where the company had decided not to attend the event. The company had cited the risks of Coronavirus and that the health of their employees are top priority.
After a close review of guidance by global health authorities and out of an abundance of caution, we’ve made the difficult decision to withdraw from participating at Game Developers Conference 2020 in San Francisco. 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).
On the other hand, GDC held a press conference noting that the event will still be going on, but this was before Epic and Microsoft have confirmed their absence. It is yet to be seen if this year’s GDC will either be postponed or canceled altogether. We still have to wait for any official announcement by GDC.
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