The ongoingcoronavirus(COVID-19) pandemic has taken a harsh toll on nations across the globe ever since its rise in severity and virality, starting in December. Countless cities around the world have started to enact curfews while encouraging social distancing and proper hygiene in an effort to combat the continuing spread of the deadly virus. Virtually every industry/economy has been affected by the countermeasures to the virus as well, especially the gaming industry. While developers, publishers, etc., are adopting work-from-home policies for their employees,2020’s biggest games could be delayed by the coronavirus.
Studios like Naughty Dog still abide by crunch culture, and policies like work-from-home would certainly cause a delay in games likeThe Last of Us 2(though this is speculation at this time).There have already been several delays or outright cancellations over the virus in the past few months of major games, events, and conferences so it’s clear that the trend is going to continue into the foreseeable future. From Nintendo Switch ports to GDC 2020, the outbreak has caused many things in the gaming industry, big and small, to be delayed indefinitely. Here are some of those things.
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Games Affected By The Coronavirus
The bulk of delays and cancellations have been attributed to events and such but games have certainly been affected as well; it’s just that the most games that will be affected by the coronavirus outbreak are ones still in development. Still, one of the first games to be affected by the outbreak wasAnimal Crossing New Horizons,albeit not in a significant way. Pre-orders for the Switch bundle for the game were delayed in Japan due to the virus. More dramatically though, the Switch port ofThe Outer Worldswas delayedindefinitely for the safety of the port team.
Elsewhere, Niantic has made several changes toPokemon Goin order to accommodate players stuck indoors. It has also canceled or postponed several events around the game, such as Abra Community Day, the St. Louis Safari Zone, and several events in Japan. Recently,The Pokemon Company canceled allPokemoneventsfor two months due to the virus.
ForSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate,director Masahiro Sakurai stated in a column that the outbreak could affect development on DLC characters for the second fighter pass. Although it’s possible that an announcement on thenextSmash UltimateDLC characterwas supposed to happen relatively soon, the pandemic could very well delay the second fighter pass for the game indefinitely.
Although it’s not a video game, production on theUnchartedmovie was also delayed due to the coronavirus outbreak (that movie can’t catch a break). Gaming certainly isn’t the only medium that is suffering nowadays, as there are many movies and TV shows that were delayed too. Season two ofNetflix’sThe Witcheris just one of many productions that had to be stopped amid this outbreak.
Events Affected By The Coronavirus
As previously mentioned, gaming events were hit the hardest as a result of the pandemic. The two biggest events that were cancelled/postponed because of the coronavirus so far are GDC 2020 andE3 2020. It happened like a domino effect. First, companies like Capcom, Square Enix, Sony, etc., gradually started to pull out of PAX East in the days leading up to it. Although the event managed to still happen, this domino effect spelled bad news for the upcoming GDC which was supposed to happen in mid-March.
One after the other, Sony, Microsoft, Facebook, Unity, EA, and others just started dropping out of the event in succession, all citing the coronavirus as the reason for absence. Eventually, it just caved in on itself altogether and the showrunners ultimately decided tocancel GDCcompletely (they’re still hoping to run it later in the summer though). After GDC’s cancellation, all eyes were on E3 2020, which itself was already experiencing some major problems.
Otherwise, some of the first events to be cancelled were either in or near China, which is where the outbreak initially exploded. These events included theLeague of LegendsPro League, theOverwatchLeague, andthe Taipei Game Show. The latter show, similarly to GDC (albeit preceding it) was postponed early on, out of concern for public safety. Esports events forLeague of Legendswere also significantly affected in North America and Europe, months after the cancellation of events in Asia.
Similarly, theOverwatchLeague has recently decided to cancel all March and April events due to the outbreak, while PUBG Corp. went ahead and canceled its Berlin-based esports event in April.EA also canceled its esports events-Apex LegendsGlobal Series and EA SportsFIFA 20Global Series.
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This month also saw the postponement of Washington state-based Emerald City Comic-Con, which was moved from its original dates in mid-March and is now scheduled to take place in August. Twitch also announced earlier this month that TwitchCon Amsterdam, which was supposed to take place in May, has now been canceled altogether due to the ongoing pandemic. Drastically, the city of Austin also canceled South by Southwest earlier this month, the first cancellation in the event’s 34 year history. Elsewhere,Bandai Namco also rescheduled some eventsearlier this month, pushing back the World Tour of bothSoulCaliburandTekken.
March is ostensibly “cancellation month,” as more and more companies announce suspension of previously scheduled events. For example,MinecraftFestival was originally scheduled for September and was postponed earlier this month. The London-based indie-focused game show, EGX Rezzed, was also announced to be postponed this month and developer CCP announced thatEVEFanfest was outright canceled. Facebook’s F8 conference and BitSummit in Japan were also outright canceled because of the outbreak. Some events have made online-only pivots though, such asthe BAFTA Awards, theCall of DutyLeague, Digital Extremes’ Tennocon, and the Vive Ecosystem Conference.
The pandemic also had an effect on gaming hardware, as Oculus Quests became scarce while theTurboGrafx-16 Mini saw a delayin launch. As discussed above, it’s only a matter of time before more gaming hardware and software start to feel the effects of thecoronaviruspandemic. Not only can this year’s biggest games be delayed but the PS5 and Xbox Series X could be delayed as well. For now though, it seems like Sony and Microsoft are sticking with 2020. Here’s hoping the world as a whole, and subsequently the gaming industry, gets better over time.
