Though this year's Games Developers Conference (GDC) was held entirely online due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, plans have been laid out for a more relatively normal event next year. In an official statement, GDC staff revealed that GDC 2021 will be held as a hybrid event that will physically take place in San Francisco with the option to attend virtually.
GDC 2021 will take place from Monday, July 19th through to Friday, July 23rd 2021 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, which has held the conference since 2009. Further details on this hybrid event will be available in the near future.
GDC staff also announced a series of virtual GDC Master Classes to be launched later this year and that a "GDC Community Celebration" will take place from March 1st through to March 5th 2021 that will showcase behind-the-scenes lectures, talks, Q&As and "more interactive content."
Multiple prominent companies such as Amazon and Blizzard Entertainment pulled out from this year's show citing concerns regarding coronavirus. This forced the conference to be held in a digital-only format, saving organizers the headache of having to keep attendees safe and to adhere to social distancing mandates.
Last month, a GDC survey revealed the impact COVID-19 has had on the video game industry. The survey, which polled nearly 2,500 developers, found that a third of them had to delay games and that a heavy majority worked from home.
A hybrid event should help smaller indie developers with lesser resources, especially considering that they were not able to attend a physical conference this year with all the advantages the format provides such as networking. To aid them, sponsors organized fundraisers for the GDC Relief Fund which raised $291,000 for 177 developers to recover from the financial losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: GDC