The right move: GDC 2020 was originally scheduled to run from March 16 through March 20. In hindsight, the advisory board made the right decision as there's no way they could have hosted GDC in this current climate, and especially in San Francisco.
Game Developers Conference organizers made the difficult decision in late February to postpone the annual conference due to fears over the coronavirus.
Organizers said they were intent on hosting a GDC event over the summer and on Thursday, we got new details about those plans.
GDC Summer will be a three-day celebration of all things game development. The event will run from August 4 - 6 at the Moscone Center in sunny San Francisco with the latter two days featuring show floor access.
Registration for GDC Summer will open soon, we're told. Conference and expo passes and pricing are as follows:
Most major tech events that have been affected by the coronavirus thus far have either been canceled outright or transformed into online-only events. Kudos to GDC for being among the first to reschedule an event and not just flat out call it off.
While valiant, the move isn't without risk. Many are hopeful that this whole pandemic will be a distant memory by August but there is no guarantee of that. These are uncharted waters which some believe could stretch on for many more weeks or months with waves of infections that could cripple communities over and over again.
Masthead credit: GDC by Sheila Fitzgerald.