The American company has confirmed that it will not go to San Francisco because of the fear surrounding the epidemic, which reaches a worldwide spread.
Electronic Arts has issued a statement confirming its withdrawal from the GDC 2020 to be held this March at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, from March 16 to 20, because of the fear surrounding COVID-19, known globally as Wuhan coronavirus.
The North American firm will cancel one of the main local events of the videogame industry, as explained in the note issued to the media. "Having closely followed the global situation with the coronavirus and the recent escalation of chaos in new regions, we have decided to take measures to protect the well-being of our employees, including their restriction to non-essential travel," they begin by saying.
“As a result, we cancel our official participation in the GDC and will limit our attendance to other events. We will continue to monitor the situation and adjust the guidelines for our employees as appropriate. ” They have not transcended more details about their presence in future relevant meetings in the sector.
The GDC 2020 will take place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, from March 16 to 20
They are not the first to confirm that they will not attend the Game Developers Conference 2020 this March; Last week brands like Sony PlayStation, Facebook and Kojima Productions did the same.
The international alert status has already been alerted by WHO. The agency has changed its criteria after identifying the first infections outside of China; in this way, COVID-19 is already a disease of world consciousness. The world of communication and consumer electronics is being inevitably splashed by this situation of alertness and uncertainty, affecting from now on the production chain of consoles such as Nintendo Switch or even, if the situation worsens, PS5 and Xbox Series X.
How things are with the coronavirus
The latest information to which we have had access to COVID-19 indicates that the virus has begun to spread strongly in Italy. This past dawn has also been reported the third case of coronavirus in Spain; It is an Italian in Tenerife.
According to El País, in China, those killed by this epidemic are already more than 2520 people and 79,354 people infected since the outbreak began. Another seriously affected country is South Korea, where the state of maximum alert has been decreed this past Sunday with more than 200 cases; The total number is 833 infected, the highest outside of China. In Italy, the main focus of the coronavirus in Europe, there are already more than 229 people affected.
