Epic Games Withdraws from GDC 2020

On February 28, 2020, Epic Games has announced that it would not be at the 2020 Game Developers Conference. This is due to rising health concerns about the current COVID-19 coronavirus. It will make announcements via other means.

Epic Games was planning to have an Unreal Engine games booth at GDC 2020. Final Fantasy VII Remake, Minecraft Dungeons, and Guilty Gear Strive were going to be playable there.

Here at Epic we were excited about participating in GDC 2020. Regrettably, uncertainty around health concerns has made it unviable to send our employees, and so we have made the difficult decision to withdraw attendance.

Stay tuned for Epic news and more through other channels.

— Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine) February 27, 2020

This announcement comes on the heels of a number of other significant cancellations, including Microsoft. The other company cancelled for similar concerns over the health and safety of its developers, employeers, and partners. Instead of attending GDC 2020, Microsoft plans to hold an online GameStack event on March 16-18, 2020.

Kojima Productions has also canceled its GDC 2020 appearance for similar reasons. Hideo Kojima and Eric Johnson, Kojima Production’s AI programmer, had planned to attend the conference to talk about Death Stranding. Other cancellations include Facebook, Sony, and Unity. As of February 28, 2020, Nintendo has not changed its plans to attend.

Growing concerns about the coronavirus have caused other companies to cancel other major events, including the SNK World Championship Grand Finals and panels and activities at PAX East 2020. 

The Game Developers Conference will be held from March 16-20, 2020 in San Francisco, California.