Game Developers Conference 2020 Postponed

After multiple companies — including Microsoft, Blizzard and Amazon — pulled out of this year's Game Developers Conference due to health concerns over the novel coronavirus, the event's organisers have made the decision to postpone GDC 2020 until later in the year. The announcement, available on the GDC website, is as follows:

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.

Refunds are being offered for attendees that had already book their passes, while many of the talks that would have taken place at GDC 2020 are instead going to be hosted online for free.

The impact of the novel coronavirus on gaming events has been felt elsewhere, with the currently running PAX East 2020 seeing multiple companies dropping out or reducing their presence at the event. Whether the virus will cause a similar exodus at events later in the year is unknown, though organisers will likely be planning for this possibility.