Over the last couple of weeks, game development companies have been dropping out of theGame Developer’s Conference(akaGDC) left and right due to concerns about the recent outbreak of novel coronavirus that has the world on edge. Finally, GDC lost one major developer too many, and earlier today announced that the conference would be postponed altogether until this summer–but that decision is already taking its toll on smaller developers.
It’s not terribly surprising that GDC finally pulled the plug on its usual March events; in the last week alone,Amazon, Gearbox, Blizzard, Microsoft, Sony, EA, and many others confirmed that they would no longer be present at GDC. Of course, none of those companies should have any problems dealing with GDC expenses that are now obsolete due to the change in schedule, but those expenses are potentially devastating to the indie developers who staked a lot on attending the conference.
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To that end, a GDC Relief Fund has already been established, and gamedev.world announced it would be hosting a week-long fundraiser to support those efforts. GDC itself has, thankfully, committed to refunding tickets of attendees, but there’s usually more that goes into attending GDC: conference-goers have been stuck with airfare purchases, lodging, and non-refundable travel visas that are now more or less useless. Thecoronavirus has an effecton even the largest companies, and to smaller developers, it’s bigger than being unable to attend GDC this year; it’s also the inability to salvage the lost money, which in some cases represents years of savings.
The postponement of GDC doesn’t really sound like “disaster” to most people who hear the news, especially since thefear of the coronavirusis so strong, but the truth is that many small developers took a ton of financial damage from it. For those developers, events like GDC are a gamble that makes a huge difference if successful, and this year luck just wasn’t in the cards.
However, the outpouring of support is heartening to see, and hopefully, the upcomingGDCfundraisers bring out thebest of the gaming communityfor the sake of affected developers.
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