After Facebook’s exit from the 34th edition of the Game Developers Conference, which is scheduled to run between March 16-20 in San Francisco, California, Microsoft and Unity have also announced that they won’t be attending as the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) continues.
Microsoft says that they will be holding a live stream on their website between March 16-18, which will feature game developer sessions and experiences that were planned for GDC 2020.
“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,” Microsoft announced. “The health and safety of players, developers, employees, and partners around the world is our top priority. Especially as the world is experiencing growing public health risks associated with coronavirus”
Unity Technologies, the developer of the cross-platform game engine Unity, have also released a statement pulling out of Game Developers Conference 2020 due to Coronavirus risk. They’ll be showcasing the stuff they were going to at GDC online but haven’t announced any dates for the online event yet.
“Unfortunately, this year, after much thought and deliberation, we have made the difficult decision to pull out of GDC 2020. We take our employees’ wellbeing very seriously. We do not want any Unity employee, partner, community member or developer to compromise their health and safety unnecessarily,” Unity explained.
However, GDC’s organiser’s are moving ahead with the event. “We’ve recently learned of the additional preventative measures instituted by the City Of San Francisco around COVID19. Locally, the California Department of Public Health, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and the San Francisco Travel Association continue to support the convening of public events, and we are moving forward as planned,” the organiser’s said in an update.
Game Developers Conference isn’t the only one affected by the Coronavirus outbreak as Mobile World Congress 2020, which was scheduled between February 24-27, was also cancelled after several big tech names backed out of the event.
Facebook has also called off its F8 Developer’s Conference 2020 amidst Coronavirus fears.
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