The coronavirus has delivered another blow to technology conferences. Chinese exhibitors who were planning to attend the Game Developers Conference in March will instead send North American personnel in their place or not participate at all.
GDC revealed the change on its website and clarified that about 10 of the 550 companies that planned to participate in the San Francisco conference are Chinese. Chinese citizens are unable to join the conference due to travel restrictions, but event organizers said they are welcome to participate in GDC 2021.
“We’re hoping for a resolution of this difficult situation as soon as [is] practical,” GDC organizers said in the post. “The health and safety of our attendees and exhibitors is our top priority.”
For those still attending GDC 2020, there will be electrostatic disinfectant sprayers in busy areas and frequent wipe-downs of items that are touched a lot like doorknobs and light switches. Attendees are encouraged to frequently wash their hands for at least 20 seconds and use hand sanitizer when soap isn’t available. Carpets in the meeting areas will be sanitized daily, and exhibitors with equipment like controllers and VR headsets are advised to regularly disinfect them.
The news comes a week after Mobile World Congress 202o was canceled outright over fears of the coronavirus, which had been officially designated Covid-19. The Chinese presence at MWC was expected to be substantial, with as many as 6,000 attendees. Prior to the cancellation, major companies, including LG, Sony, TCL, Amazon, and Nvidia, had already pulled out.
The coronavirus continues to cause disruption for several global gaming companies, including Nintendo, which ran into issues with its Nintendo Switch special-edition console pre-orders and Ring Fit Adventure game. The Oculus Quest headset had already experienced delays because of its popularity, and now the company expects the delays to linger even longer as the virus creates a ripple effect. Should the coronavirus remain an issue deeper into 2020, it could pose trouble for the upcoming Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 launches.
The vast majority of coronavirus deaths thus far have occurred in mainland China, but the disease has spread globally, including to the United States. There are currently more than two dozen confirmed cases in the U.S.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.