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PlayStation and Facebook PULL OUT of a global gaming conference in San Francisco over coronavirus concerns

by www.dailymail.co.uk on Filed Under: Science

PlayStation and Facebook’s gaming division have pulled out of a major gaming conference due to take place next month over the spread of the killer coronavirus.

The Game Developer Conference, due to take place from March 16 to 20 at the Moscone Center, San Francisco, will be without two of the biggest names in gaming.

Both companies cited public health risks over the virus SARS-CoV-2 which causes the disease COVID-19 and has claimed more than 2,000 lives.

Coronavirus has already forced the cancellation of Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest tech conference, which was due to kick off in Barcelona on Monday.

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Game Developers Conference is the world’s largest professional game industry event, running this year from March 16-20 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California

‘Out of concern for the health and safety of our employees, our dev partners and the GDC community as a whole, Facebook’s AR-VR and gaming teams won’t be attending this year’s Game Developers Conference due to the evolving public health risks related to COVID-19,’ Oculus said in a blog post.

‘This was a difficult decision, but it’s the right call to make at this time.

‘We’re removing our booth footprint and advising all employees to refrain from travelling to the show.’

Oculus said it will share the announcements it had planned for the show online, through videos and Q&As.

PlayStation maker Sony, meanwhile, said pulling out of GDC ‘was the best option’ regarding the circumstances, in a statement to GamesIndustry.biz. 

‘We have made the difficult decision to cancel our participation in Game Developers Conference due to increasing concerns related to COVID-19 (also known as coronavirus),’ Sony said.

‘We felt this was the best option as the situation related to the virus and global travel restrictions are changing daily.

‘We are disappointed to cancel our participation, but the health and safety of our global workforce is our highest concern.’

Show attendees play a video game while wearing Facebook’s Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets

PlayStation will also be skipping PAX East, another games exhibition in Boston that is still going ahead next Thursday, February 27.

GDC, which consists of five days of lectures, panels, demonstrations and networking spaces relating to gaming, said in a post this week ‘how much it cares about the health of its attendees’ and still believes it can host a safe event.

‘We believe that based on the strict US quarantine around coronavirus and a large number of enhanced on-site measures, we are able to execute a safe and successful event for our community,’ it said.

The organisers said last week that coronavirus – which has infected 76,000 people globally – had impacted around 10 of the 500 companies participating at the show.

Other big-name exhibitors including Amazon, Apple, Google, Intel, Microsoft and Nintendo will still be attending as of Friday morning.

However, there is a chance that Sony and Facebook’s absence could lead to other companies following suit, with show becoming less viable if more exhibitors pull out.  

Increased safety measures at GDC will include widely-available hand sanitizers, daily showroom carpet sanitation, and frequent cleans of common touch areas such as doorknobs, microphones and escalator rails.

An operator at the entry of the Fira Barcelona Montjuic centre in Barcelona, Catalonia, 12 February 2020, where Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2020 was supposed to take place from 24 to 27 February

The organisers of the gaming conference are also asking attendees to ‘stay in their hotel’ if they are sick and wash their hands thoroughly before eating.

The event has the backing of the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), which does not recommend the cancelling of events as ‘the risk to the public remains low’.

‘We recommend that everyone take normal precautions to prevent getting sick, as this is the height of flu season,’ SFDPH said in a statement earlier this month. 

‘There is no recommendation to wear masks to prevent novel coronavirus, which is not circulating in San Francisco at this time.’

The city is treating its first confirmed case of coronavirus of Thursday night, according to NBC. 

However, as of Friday morning, SFDPH maintains there are zero confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in San Francisco residents, and the risk to the general public is low.

‘If a case is confirmed in San Francisco we will announce it on Twitter and here on our website,’ it says. 

WHAT TRADE AND BUSINESS EVENTS HAVE BEEN AFFECTED BY CORONAVIRUS?

Over two dozen large trade fairs and industry conferences in China and overseas have been postponed or hit by travel curbs and concerns about the spread of a coronavirus, potentially disrupting billions of dollars worth of deals.

In order of scheduled or likely dates:

* Taipei International Book Exhibition, Feb. 4-9 – Billed as Taiwan’s largest annual literary event, the exhibition has been postponed to May 7-12.

* League of Legends Pro League, due to start Feb. 5: The e-sports league owned by gaming giant Tencent Holdings said it would postpone the start of its second week until further notice.

* Singapore Airshow, Feb. 11-16: The aviation leadership summit scheduled on the eve of the event was canceled. The show itself will go ahead as planned, but on a smaller scale with more than 70 exhibitors pulling out and the number of public tickets halved.

* China Commodity Markets Insight Forum 2020, Feb. 19-20: The forum held by S&P Global Platts was delayed until further notice.

* National Association of Travel Agents Singapore (NATAS) travel fair 2020, Feb. 21-23: Moved to May because exhibitors were concerned about turnout at the fair.

* Mobile World Congress, due to take place from February 24-27, was cancelled after big names such as Facebook, Amazon, Sony and LG pulled out.

* China Iron Ore 2020, Feb. 25-27: The event held by Fastmarkets in Beijing has been postponed to June 30-July 2.

* East China Import and Export Commodity Fair, March 1-4:Due to be held in Shanghai, the fair usually attracts traders of garments and household goods. It was postponed until further notice.

* Malaysia’s biggest palm oil conference, the Palm and Lauric Oils Price Outlook Conference and Exhibition, or POC2020, originally scheduled for March 2-4, will be rescheduled to June 22-24.

* Marine Money China, March 3-4: Originally slated to be held in Shanghai, organizers of the meeting for shipping financiers have said that it has been delayed, likely until November.

* Food & Hotel Asia in Singapore, March 3-6: Organisers of the biennial trade show have postponed its first leg to July. The event attracted more than 80,000 attendees when it was last held in 2018.

* National People’s Congress, likely to have started March 5: China is considering delaying the annual meeting of its top legislative body, five people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

* 6th China LNG & Gas International Exhibition and Summit, Shanghai, March 4-6: Organizers said the event has been postponed until a later date this year. They are in the process of confirming the new date.

* Asian Ferroalloys, March 16-18: The conference by Fastmarkets, due to be held in Shanghai, has been postponed with no new date given.

* Art Basel Hong Kong show, March 19-21: The high-profile annual show has been canceled.

* SEMICON/FPD China 2020, March 18-30: The annual trade conference for the global chip industry in China was postponed until further notice.

* China Development Forum, usually late March: Hosted by a foundation under the State Council, the conference was postponed until further notice.

* Canton Fair, spring season from April 15: The venue of China’s oldest and biggest trade fair said it has suspended exhibitions until further notice. (Reporting by Brenda Goh, Shanghai Newsroom and Emily Chow in Shanghai, Min Zhang and Shivani Singh in Beijing, John Geddie in Singapore and Jessica Jones in Madrid Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Himani Sarkar, Alex Richardson and Frances Kerry)

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