GDC 2020 rescheduled for Summer

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After the serious impact that coronavirus has had on large events this year, the organisers for GDC 2020 have now given details about a replacement event scheduled for later this year in Summer. The Game Developers Conference 2020 was supposed to take place this month (March), but fears of the coronavirus forced the organisers to cancel and sent many developers and publishers to find new ways of showcasing their games.

Informa Tech, the organisers of GDC, stated that the rescheduled event will be called GDC Summer and will take place August 4-6 at the same venue in the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

“GDC Summer will be a unique Game Developers Conference experience but will retain the same high level of expert-led talks as the traditional GDC, along with a freestyle two-day expo show floor August 5th and 6th,” they stated.

“Safety remains the GDC organizers’ paramount concern and the GDC team will continue to monitor the latest information from health officials to ensure a safe and compelling event for everyone at GDC Summer, GDC 2021, and beyond.“

This new event is noticeably shorter, taking place only over 3 days instead of the usual 5. Though Informa Tech said that it will be aimed to “reach areas of the industry previously untapped due to space restrictions” by developing a new community partnership program, which, in turn, will allow organisations to apply for space at the Moscone Center in order to host meetings, portfolio reviews, local gatherings and more.

What will be interesting is how this will affect companies and partners attending the event. Steam is currently hosting a Steam Game Festival for Spring, allowing users to download and play many game demos that were originally slated for GDC this month. Will they make a reappearance? Will any other companies hold off on certain announcements until this new date? Or will they just stream/reveal it online?

Of course, this would all be awful if they have to cancel, again, if the coronavirus is still a major issue after a few months.

What do you think of the rescheduled event? Is it good for GDC to do this? Or will they just have to cancel again? What does this mean for indie developers? Let us know!