Epic and Microsoft Drop out of GDC Due to Coronavirus
Epic Games and Microsoft have officially announced that they will no longer be participating in GDC 2020 due to Coronavirus concerns. Both companies will be streaming content through multiple channels, including news on the Xbox Series X from Microsoft. Epic was set to hold its annual “State of Unreal” showcase at GDC and Microsoft typically hosts a separate ID@Xbox event in San Francisco during the show so this is a major hit to the annual Game Developer Conference. GDC 2020 runs from March 16th-20th but with so many developers backing out, it’ll be interesting to see how stacked it is this year.
“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,” said Microsoft in a recent Game Stack blog. “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).” While we look forward to any news they’ll share in a livestream, it’s scary to see a virus have such an impact on the gaming industry.
Epic Games took to Twitter to say, “Regrettably, uncertainty around health concerns has made it unviable to send our employees, and so we have made the difficult decision to withdraw attendance.” Despite their absence from GDC this year, we’re interested to see the content both Epic and Microsoft share in their other channels such as livestreams, videos, etc. There are several other developers who have pulled out of GDC 2020 and it’ll be interesting to see just how many end up attending the event.
What do you expect to see from Epic Games and Microsoft livestreams, videos, etc. to make up for missing GDC 2020? Do you expect the Coronavirus to last through March? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: Kotaku