One of the companies plans to make announcements though

Feb 21, 2020 14:54 GMT  ·  By

After the canceled Mobile World Congress 2020, another trade fair is in danger of being suppressed by the coronavirus outbreak – the Game Developers Conference (GDC). The event is set to run from March 16 to March 20, but two big companies have already announced they will not attend to GDC this year: Facebook and Sony.

Sony has been skipping a lot of gaming events this year, as GDC is the second big trade fair where the Japanese company won't be participating. For the second year in a row, Sony will not be attending the world's biggest gaming convention – E3. In a statement to GamesIndustry, Sony Interactive Entertainment explained that the health and safety of its employees are important and this is why the company decided to cancel its participation at GDC:

We have made the difficult decision to cancel our participation in the Game Developers Conference due to increasing concerns related to COVID-19 (also known as coronavirus). 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.”

Facebook also announced that it will not be attending GDC this year. Nevertheless, the company will still make announcements at the event using digital formats with “video, online Q&As and more.” So, while there will be no Facebook booth at GDC this year, we will still be able to watch the company's announcements.

Just like Sony, Facebook is concerned about the health and safety of its employees, which is why it had to pull out from the GDC. You can read below Facebook's statement concerning the company's decision to cancel its presence at the event:

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 Developer Conference due to the evolving public health risks related to COVID-19. 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.”