The organizers of the Game Developers Conference postponed the event after sponsors, attendees, journalists, and developers decided not to come due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus.
In recent days some of the event’s biggest supporters including Epic, Unity, Facebook, Sony, Amazon, and many more, along with a large number of journalists and developers, pulled out of attendance at the event. Many companies encouraged their employees not to travel to the March event in San Francisco.
Here’s the statement from organizers:
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.
Having spent the past year preparing for the show with our advisory boards, speakers, exhibitors, and event partners, we’re genuinely upset and disappointed not to be able to host you at this time .
We want to thank all our customers and partners for their support, open discussions and encouragement. As everyone has been reminding us, great things happen when the community comes together and connects at GDC. For this reason, we fully intend to host a GDC event later in the summer. We will be working with our partners to finalize the details and will share more information about our plans in the coming weeks.
Organizers also sent out an email with answers related to questions about the event:
Q: I am a current GDC 2020 paid conference or expo registrant – now the event is not taking place in March, can I receive a refund of my pass money?
A: If you are a currently registered paid passholder, you will be receiving an email about your registration status and any next steps regarding refunds, which conference and expo attendees will be receiving in full.
Q: What is the situation with hotels if I booked through the GDC hotel website/room blocks?
A: Individuals who have made hotel reservations inside the GDC room block will not have to pay penalties or fees associated with their reservations. More information on next steps will be available early next week.
Q: What is happening to the talks that would have been presented at Game Developers Conference 2020?
A: In order to allow our conference speakers to still participate in the event, we are intending to make many of the presentations that would have been given at GDC 2020 available for free online. After speakers (optionally) contribute their talks in video format, they will be distributed on the GDC YouTube channel and the free part of GDC Vault.
Q: What is happening to the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Choice Awards – will they still take place?
A: We also intend to stream a set of these GDC 2020 talks and the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Choice Awards via Twitch during the week that the event would have taken place in San Francisco (March 16th to 20th), so that our community can continue to honor & celebrate its best games.
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