Epic Games, the company responsible for "Fortnite" and the Unreal Engine video game development suite, will no longer attend the 2020 Game Developers Conference due to the coronavirus disease, or COVID-19. The annual conference is scheduled to be held in San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 16 to 20. Thousands of attendees are expected, with representatives from every corner of the video game industry.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney was scheduled to deliver a keynote presentation at GDC, and Epic made plans to sponsor multiple panel discussions and a floor booth during the week. Now, Epic has joined Facebook, Sony, Microsoft,, Electronic Arts, and about a dozen more companies that will no longer send employees due to health concerns.
"Here at Epic we were excited about participating in GDC 2020," Epic announced in a statement. "Regrettably, uncertainty around health concerns has made it unviable to send our employees, and so we have made the difficult decision to withdraw attendance." Epic's announcement came just a few hours after its main competitor, Unity, announced that it would also no longer attend GDC. Unity, Microsoft, and Facebook have announced plans to make some of their sponsored programming available online during GDC, and its possible that Epic could follow the same course. originated in China, where more than 78,000 people have been infected, according to the World Health Organization.