Due to coronavirus fears, Facebook’s Oculus VR division won’t be attending the 2020 Game Developers Conference in person, but the company is still planning on making digital announcements regarding the latest Oculus news. In the meantime, Facebook is canceling its planned booth at the event and advising employees to avoid GDC at this time.
The coronavirus, COVID19, continues to spread, particularly in China and some Eastern Asia countries. Thus far, around 75,700 people have been infected by the pneumonia-like disease, and about 2,130 have died. While the 2020 GDC is being held in San Francisco, it attracts many attendees from around the world, including China, which has raised fears that the virus will spread easily at the event. Other popular gaming events, including eSport tournaments and studio announcements, have been delayed or canceled because of growing concerns over the virus.
According to reports directly from Oculus, any planned GDC meetings will be scheduled remotely in the coming weeks, so that Oculus will be able to make important contacts and announce key VR news which would otherwise have happened in person at GDC. It’s a tactic taken by an increasing number of companies, including several Chinese firms, as well as Sony Interactive Entertainment. Livestreaming important reveals and Q&As is certainly a different format, and attendees will lose the ability to try hands-on experiences with the latest creations, something that particularly benefits Oculus VR games. An announcement from the company reported, “We still plan to share the exciting announcements we had planned for the show through videos, online Q&As, and more.”
GDC, meanwhile, is taking action to make the conference as safe as possible for those who will attend. Literal anti-virus measures include many more sanitation stations, electrostatic sprayers with disinfectant, and a more rigorous cleaning schedule for the venue, as well as warnings about potential dangers of the coronavirus. GDC and San Francisco are also working to include safety measures for the hotels that out-of-town attendees will be using. As for Oculus itself, the company was scheduled to make a presentation at GDC on “State of the VR Game: Breaking Through as VR Breaks Out,” a session on how developers can deal with Facebook’s hurdles when trying to bring an Oculus game to market – as well as an event on the future of multiplayer games in the VR world.
It doesn’t appear that any major announcements for Oculus VR games would be made at GDC, which makes sense: It’s a developer conference, not a games event for something like the Rift S. However, it would have been nice to see information on the latest multiplayer features coming to Oculus and the sort of games they would enable (perhaps something with VR FPS like Gunheart attempted). No doubt Facebook will be releasing videos with the tastiest details shortly, so players will just have to be patient until then.
Next: Spider-Man Developer is Making an Open-World VR Game
Source: Oculus, GDC
