The coronavirus’s rampage on the world’s biggest trade shows continues. On Thursday, both Facebook’s Oculus VR division and Sony said they were withdrawing from the the upcoming Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, citing the ongoing outbreak.
“Sadly, we’re unable to participate this year,” Oculus said in a blog post today. “Out of concern for the health and safety of our employees, our dev partners, and the GDC community as a whole, Facebook’s AR/VR and Gaming teams won’t be attending this year’s Game Developers Conference due to the evolving public health risks.”
Sony Interactive Entertainment told Gamesindustry.biz that the company was also skipping the show. “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,” the company reportedly said.
The Game Developers Conference, which has previously attracted 29,000 attendees, is slated to be held from March 16 to the 20th. Although the show will still be held despite today’s cancellations, attendance at this year’s event may be down.
“Our China-based conference attendees (around 2 percent of the total GDC attendance) will not be attending this year, since the US Government has restricted visas & travel from areas significantly impacted by [the coronavirus],” the show’s organizers said last week.
According to GDC, only around 10 out of the 550 companies slated to exhibit at the show were from China. But due to outbreak, the affected companies have either withdrawn from GDC or decided to send only North American-based employees to the event.
The coronavirus outbreak has so far sparked the cancellation of Mobile World Congress, a camera trade show in Japan called CP+, along with a marketing summit Facebook had planned to hold later this month. On Wednesday, Sony also decided to bail from another video gaming event, PAX East, citing the coronavirus concerns.
Another show that’s been disrupted by the outbreak has been the cybersecurity conference RSA, which will be held next week in San Francisco. Both IBM and AT&T, along with several Chinese vendors, have decided to withdraw from the show. But despite the cancellations, RSA still plans on holding the event. The conference organizers’ note only 1.2 percent of the total number of expected attendees have canceled.
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