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EA pulls out of GDC 2020 events as coronavirus outbreak continues

It seems as if GDC will be growing smaller with EA now advising employees not to travel to the 2020 event.

Sam Chandler

February 24, 2020 11:20 PM

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Attendees looking forward to the Game Developers Conference 2020 will be finding it slightly emptier with EA being the latest company pulling out of the event. This news comes from a LinkedIn post shared by Alex Sherer on February 24.

EA pulls out of GDC 2020

Alex Sherer, Ad Product Development Specialist at Electronic Arts (EA), has shared a post on LinkedIn this evening revealing that EA will not be at GDC 2020. While not mentioned by name, it’s safe to assume the reason is the on-going spread of the coronavirus.

“Just received word from corporate, and EA will be limiting our presence at GDC, cancelling our participation in official GDC events,” Sherer shares in the post, “and all EA employees have been advised to not travel to San Francisco for the conference.”

Sherer goes on to say that this means any GDC-related events and meetings they were scheduled to attend will have to be cancelled.

This marks yet another major company cancelling its GDC 2020 plans due to the coronavirus. Just this morning, Kojima Productions revealed that it would be cancelling Kojima’s Death Stranding GDC 2020 talk amid growing concerns.

Before EA and Kojima Productions opted out of GDC 2020, Sony, Oculus, and Facebook decided to bow out of the event.

While there’s still plenty to see and do at GDC 2020, it does beg the question whether more high-profile companies will choose to excuse themselves from the conference. The alternative is of course that with less competition, the remaining companies will receive more attention.

It’s been just about three months since the first case of coronavirus was reported, and since then it has impacted the video game industry in a multitude of ways. Animal Crossing Switch pre-orders were delayed in Japan, Mobile World Congress 2020 was cancelled, and now GDC 2020 is being negatively impacted.

E3 2020 is still a few months out, but you can’t help but wonder what decisions are being made right now about one of the biggest gaming events of the year.

For now though, it looks like GDC 2020 will be a bit quieter with EA no longer being a presence at the event.

Sam Chandler

Guides Editor

Hailing from the land down under, Sam Chandler brings a bit of the southern hemisphere flair to his work. After bouncing round a few universities, securing a bachelor degree, and entering the video game industry, he's found his new family here at Shacknews as a Guides Editor. There's nothing he loves more than crafting a guide that will help someone. If you need help with a guide, or notice something not quite right, you can message him on X: @SamuelChandler