GDC has been postponed until 'later in the summer' because of the coronavirus

Another one bites the dust; next month's Game Developers Conference, an annual gathering of game developers and industry insiders, has been postponed until "later in the summer," according to the company that hosts the event. The news is unsurprising following the cancellation or postponement of a slew of other global conferences over concerns surrounding COVID-19 (the novel coronavirus).

"After close consultation with our partners in the game development industry and community around the world, we’ve made the difficult decision to postpone the Game Developers Conference this March," the statement reads.

This was inevitable — Many major exhibitors backed out of attending GDC in recent days, including PlayStation, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook, to name a few. Companies are concerned that employees traveling to events like GDC could be at greater risk of exposure to coronavirus, which does not yet have a vaccine. And is it really necessary that we host these events right now? Surely they can wait, or we can, I don't know, make announcements online instead — video streaming, anyone?

Other large conferences have been cancelled of late for the same reason, including Facebook's F8 developers conference and Mobile World Conference in Barcelona.