Several companies backed out of Mobile World Congress 2020 that was scheduled to take place next week in Barcelona, Spain. The number of withdrawals of companies was increasing and thus, GSMA which organises the conference announced the cancellation of MWC 2020.
The reason for companies to pull out and ultimately MWC getting cancelled is the concerns related to the coronavirus outbreak. Now, the same thing is being repeated for the upcoming Game Developers Conference (GDC).
Two companies — Facebook and Sony have announced that they will be skipping this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC) which is set to kick-off from March 16th in San Francisco. They have cited coronavirus as the reason for not attending.
While Facebook is not attending GDC, it says that the company will still make announcements for its Oculus business through virtual conference. The company has also confirmed that it will remove its booth from the show floor.
As for Sony, this is the third major event that the Japanese company is skipping after MWC 2020 and PAX East which is scheduled for 27th February, and now GDC 2020. Sony said that they were disappointed to cancel but added that the safety of their employees is paramount.
Meanwhile, the team of GDC has said that they are following the latest CDC and WHO guidance to ensure safety of people during the event. It also added that the Department of Health for City of San Francisco as well as the State of California will be lending support for the same.
