Kojima Productions has announced that it will now pull out of a planned appearance at GDC 2020 owing to fears about the spread of the coronavirus

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Kojima Productions Pulls Out of GDC Due To Coronavirus Fears

Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions will not be attending the Game Developers Conference this year due to concerns about the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, according to a post on the company’s website and via twitter (below). While Sony and Oculus (Facebook) have already announced their intentions of skipping GDC, Kojima Productions has revealed that it too will be missing the event. The message is fairly brief, but notes:

“Kojima Productions has made the difficult decision to cancel our participation at the 2020 Game Developers Conference due to increasing concerns related to coronavirus. Although much-anticipated, unfortunately this cancellation also includes Hideo Kojima’s session on the 19th and Eric Johnson’s session on the 16th.”

Kojima Productions has made the difficult decision to cancel our participation at the 2020 Game Developers Conference due to increasing concerns related to coronavirus. (1/2)https://t.co/K6FJtq5Tpx — KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS (Eng) (@KojiPro2015_EN) February 24, 2020

Although much-anticipated, unfortunately this cancellation also includes Hideo Kojima’s session on the 19th and Eric Johnson’s session on the 16th. (2/2)https://t.co/K6FJtq5Tpx — KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS (Eng) (@KojiPro2015_EN) February 24, 2020

Kojima Productions had two appearances planned. The first on March 16th from AI programmer, Eric Johnson and the second from Hideo Kojima himself, a couple of days later on the 19th.

Kojima, initially one in every of GDC’s premier friends, was set to do a panel protecting Death Stranding. He was slated to speak about “the game’s concept, theme, storytelling, game mechanics, and development, utilizing the overarching keyword of ‘connection’ as a framework,” in keeping with the conference’s announcement.

The impact of the coronavirus on the gaming industry has been gradual, yet significant. In addition to the previously cited non-attendance of events by both Sony and Kojima Productions, it was speculated that the production of PS5 and Xbox Series X could both see release date delays as a result of the disease spreading.

Several game companies, like Sony and Oculus, have pulled out of GDC already, and the Final Fantasy 14 development team, as well as Sony, cancelled their PAX East plans due to coronavirus concerns.

GDC 2020 runs from March 16, 2020 through to March 20, 2020.