GDC 2020 postponed due to Coronavirus outbreak

The organisers have said that while the March event has been cancelled, they intend to host the event in late summer.

Following the cancellation of GDC 2020, the organisers of the event, gamedev.world, have announced a fundraiser event for the developers. (GDC)

Coronavirus outbreak has not only proven to be a global health hazard, but it has also wreaked havoc on the tech world by forcing manufacturing plants to shut down and tech events to cancel. Now, organisers of the Gamer Developers Conference have postponed GDC 2020 that was scheduled to take place between March 16 and March 20 in San Francisco, US.

The decision comes as participating companies such as Amazon, Electronic Arts, Epic, Facebook, Kojima Productions, Sony and Unity have withdrawn from the event and the event's China-based attendees have pushed their presence to 2021.

"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," GDC organisers said in a statement.

"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," they added.

The organisers have said that while the March event has been cancelled, they intend to host the event in late summer. "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," the statement said.

Following the cancellation of the event, the organisers of the event, gamedev.world, have announced a fundraiser event for the marginalised developers in order to help them refund the money for their flight tickets, hotel bookings, visas, etc.

"Even though GDC has committed to refunding the tickets of attendees that haven't cancelled, many developers around the world do not have a way to refund their visas, lodging, and travel costs. Many worry that they did not just lose the opportunity of attending this years' conference, but also the possibility to re-route the funds spent on other opportunities throughout the year," the organisers wrote.

"In response, gamedev.world is announcing a week-long public fundraising effort, starting March 27th until April 3rd. For the duration of the week, we will present -for free, live-translated, and online- various talks from both marginalized developers and the sponsors that made the event possible," they added in the release.

Notably, apart from MWC 2020 and GDC 2020, Facebook has also cancelled its annual developers conference F8 2020.