COVID-19 keeping publisher at bay
Electronic Arts has announced that it will not be present at the GDC 2020 event to be held in San Francisco next month. In a statement to GameSpot, the long-time publisher announced that it was cancelling its attendance in the wake of the global health crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus – more commonly referred to as the “Coronavirus.”
“Having closely followed the global situation with Coronavirus and with the recent escalation of cases in new regions, we have decided to take additional steps to protect the wellbeing of our employees including the restriction of all non-essential travel,” said an EA spokesperson in the statement. “As a result we are also cancelling our official participation at GDC and limiting attendance to other events. We are continuing to monitor the situation and will adjust guidelines to our employees as we feel is appropriate.”
Electronic Arts joins a number of high-profile companies limiting their appearances at upcoming events such as GDC and PAX East, including PlayStation, Oculus, and Kojima Productions. Recent statistics point to around 80,000 confirmed global cases of the Coronavirus, though only 53 of these are located in the United States.
GDC 2020 takes place in San Francisco between March 16-20.
EA is dropping out of GDC 2020 due to the coronavirus [GameSpot]
