2020 Game Developer’s Conference: Facebook and Sony pull out of the event amid Coronavirus concerns

The 2020 Game Developer’s Conference, the world’s biggest gathering for video game developers,  will be held in San Francisco at Moscone Center from March 16 to March 20.

However, due to health and travel concerns caused by the coronavirus outbreak Facebook, the Facebook-owned Oculus, and Sony will not attend the event. The companies have informed about their decission through offical statements.

“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 Developers Conference due to the evolving public health risks related to COVID-19,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.

“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.”

However, amid these high-profile withdrawals, GDC organizers said that they’re still planning to hold the event as planned .

“The GDC team is following developments around the Novel Coronavirus closely as we take the health and safety of our game development community very seriously,” the event’s organizers said in a statement.

“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),” Sony’s statement read.

“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.”