CD Projekt Red And PUBG Corp. Withdraw From PAX East As Electronic Arts Backs Out Of GDC

Over the past few weeks, several big-name video game companies announced their decisions to withdraw from this weekend’s PAX East conference in Boston due to the looming threat of the COVID-19 virus. The growing list of companies that have decided to skip the convention include Capcom, Square Enix, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and more recently, CD Projekt Red and PUBG Corp.

“I just found out my team is cancelling our PAX East trip so I will NOT be at PAX East as previously planned,” tweeted CD Projekt Red North American Head of Communications Stephanie Bayer. According to Gamespot, PUBG Corp. canceled their plans to attend both PAX East and next month’s Game Developer Conference in San Francisco.

Sony, Facebook, Kojima Productions, and Electronic Arts have also announced their withdrawal from GDC. “Having closely followed the global situation with coronavirus and with the recent escalation of cases in new regions, we have decided to take additional steps to protect the wellbeing of our employees including the restriction of all non-essential travel,” EA said to GamesIndustry.biz. “As a result we are also cancelling our official participation at GDC and limiting attendance to other events. We are continuing to monitor the situation and will adjust guidelines to our employees as we feel is appropriate.” EA is the latest company to cancel on the event.

The COVID-19 novel coronavirus has spread to more than 25 countries since December and has infected over 80,000 people and caused over 2,700 deaths.