The 2021 Game Developers Conference won’t have in-person gatherings after all

The Recreation Builders Convention is altering course from its original (potentially risky) plan of internet hosting a hybrid in-person / digital occasion in 2021. Based on an announcement on Thursday, GDC 2021 will probably be all-digital and cut up into three separate occasions to raised and extra safely accommodate the networking, video games showcases, and educational workshops and panels the occasion is understood for.

The collection of occasions will begin with GDC Masterclass, a group of digital workshops and trainings for builders that may happen on March 4th and fifth. GDC Showcase, which will probably be open to the general public and free to attend, will run from March fifteenth by means of nineteenth, that includes networking and lectures in “a brand new array of content material and codecs.” Lastly, GDC 2021 correct will happen through the week of July nineteenth as a enterprise and education-focused occasion. The Independent Games Festival (IGF) can even happen that week on July twenty first.

Final yr’s GDC was pushed again to the summer time and held digitally, retitled as GDC Summer. Holding the occasions digital in 2021 ensures the convention received’t change into a possible COVID-19 superspreader occasion, a priority that hasn’t stopped this yr’s Mobile World Congress from shifting ahead as an in-person conference.

One other added good thing about going digital is that it may make GDC 2021 much more accessible. Attending GDC in previous years has been prohibitively expensive for some independent developers even earlier than together with the price of staying in San Francisco for every week. A digital occasion ought to permit extra individuals to attend with out the expense of journey.