How coronavirus affects the game industry

Already now it is safe to say that the word of the year in 2020 will be “coronavirus”. We hear about him from each toaster, and on the grounds. Information about the new infected people does not cease to arrive: traveling around the world becomes unsafe. And this could not but affect the gaming industry. In today's material, we will tell you what the consequences of the spread of the virus we see now, and what everything can come to in the foreseeable future.

What exhibitions were postponed or canceled

From March 16 to 20, San Francisco had to go through Game Developers Conference – The largest rally of games developers. Last year, for example, a studio Paradox announced on it Vampire: The Masquarade – Bloodlines 2, A Google I presented a cloud service Stadia. In the same year, the epidemic forced large companies to postpone a visit to the event. On February 26, San Francisco introduced a state of emergency for the prevention of the disease and this is a good reason to refuse to visit the conference. Among companies that prefer not to risk the health of their employees, Electronic Arts , Kojima Productions , Sony , Microsoft , Blizzard And Activision. As a result, the exhibition was postponed for the summer, when the situation with the virus, according to the forecasts of doctors, should be taken away.

This is San Francisco, the city in the risk zone

Another major exhibition was not without losses – Pax East 2020. They refused to come there PUBG Corp , Square Enix , Capcom , CD Project Red And, again, Sony. The latter even personally begged the mayor of Boston, they say, do not be afraid, we have everything under control. But the company did not succumb to persuasion, which means that we were left again without announcements: Sony promised to show a lot of new things at the exhibition. Among the declared there were demo versions Nioh 2, Final Fantasy VII Remake And the long -awaited The Last of Us Part II. If you were waiting for details about Cyberpunk 2077, then do not be discouraged: according to CD Projekt Red, the studio was still not going to tell anything.

I replenished the list of "crowned" events and GTC – GPU Technology Conference , which was supposed to pass on March 22-26. At the GTC, visitors learned the latest news in the field of graphic processors, machine learning and artificial intelligence. This year, almost 10,000 people planned to attend the event. Alas, NVIDIA I decided to transfer the conference to the online space and return the money to everyone who bought tickets. There will be no full -format event with live presentations: participants were offered to publish their performances on the event website.

Thousands of people were left without a holiday

Snowball

Google I/O , where the new version is traditionally announced Android , Also canceled. Like the conference Facebook F8 , where more than 5,000 developers and business representatives gather annually. Mobile World Congress 2020 – The same story. It's a shame for the festival SXSW , dedicated to technology, cinema and music. But the main disappointment was waiting for us on March 11. ESA , The American Association of Developers said that there will be no main game event this year – summer E3 Officially canceled. However, a state of emergency has been declared in Los Angeles from March 4, so we were morally ready for this. This is how the association comments on the situation.

We calculated that these are necessary measures during such an unprecedented global situation. We are disappointed that we could not hold events this year, but we are also sure that this is the right decision within the framework of the current situation.

The situation is really unprecedented: for the first https://sister-site.org/spicy-jackpots/ time since 1995, probably the most anticipated game event will not take place. Rather, it will take place in a different format: the organizers promise to arrange an Internet conference. For E3, such an outcome may be a lethal, coupled with the re -refusal of Sony to visit the exhibition this year and a scandal with a drain of personal data. The reputation of the exhibition is soaked, and publishers now have an incentive to try out other ways to promote projects. And if they turn out to be effective, why then you need e3?

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For the first time in the history of the industry, so many events were canceled at once

As for another large exhibition, Gamescom , Everything is in order with her so far. The organizers assure that the preparation is in full swing, and they will do everything possible for the event to take place. However, Germany is the sixth country in the number of infected after China, South Korea, Italy, Iran and Spain. As of March 12, the number of infected is 2318 people. This causes fears: yes, the exhibition at the end of August, but one hundred percent confidence that by that time the situation will get better.

How projects and studios suffer

The situation is tragic and in Microsoft. The company began serious problems with deliveries from China, where the focus of the epidemic is located. In this regard, a few weeks ago, the company representatives said that the revenue would go a lot. The thing is that the enterprises from where they supply iron for Microsoft are closed, and employees cannot go to work. Entire areas areolated in China in order to somehow slow down the spread of infection. Millions of people are sitting on quarantine, there is simply no one to work. Therefore, most of the products are received either with a delay, or does not act at all, which Microsoft reported to investors a couple of weeks ago. As a result of the technician shares fell by 7%. Sony and Nintendo , By the way, we also fell under the distribution. The second shares were 9%sank, and the former have problems with the PS5 circulation in November.

Who will lose more in this situation – time will tell

To everything else, also releases began to transfer. This year we can't see Path of Exile 2 -Developers cannot go to work due to emergency. For the same reason at the end of the year, the release of the mobile version moved Eve Online. In general, fans of the cosmic MMO were doubly unlucky: the EVE Fanfest 2020 festival also decided not to conduct due to the risk of infection. Bungie, fearing for the health of employees, closed the main office in Seattle and transferred the staff to remote. However, representatives of the studio claim that this will not affect the output of patches and updates. Unlucky and fans Counter-STRIKE. The ending of Intel Extreme Masters, where Na’vi won, took place in the empty arena. The audience was simply not allowed into the hall when on the eve of the match, information was received about the first infected in Poland. A huge arena for 11,000 people empty.

But Koronavirus did not spoil everyone with raspberries. The mobile industry, on the contrary, feels great. The market has grown as much as $ 150 billion due to a record number of downloads by Chinese users. Schools are closed, everyone is sitting home. What to do? Of course, play games. The average weekly application of applications for the first two weeks of February jumped as much as 40% compared to the average indicator for the whole of 2019. Stock Tencent reached a 20-month maximum, and analysts predict even greater growth, because schools and factories will not open soon.

You look at how happy

The situation with coronavirus is heating up. This is an unprecedented case, and it will not pass without a trace for the industry. We can only follow the news and hope that the virus will begin to take up positions in the near future. Take care of yourself!

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