Kojima Productions pulls out of GDC due to coronavirus concerns

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.

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

Kojima, originally one of GDC’s premier guests, was set to do a panel covering Death Stranding. He was slated to talk about “the game’s concept, theme, storytelling, game mechanics, and development, utilizing the overarching keyword of ‘connection’ as a framework,” according to the conference’s announcement.

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.

Overwatch League matches in China canceled through March, more esports events postponed

The novel coronavirus started to spread in late 2019 and has since infected over 79,000 people and claimed over 2,600 lives.

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