As you may have all heard already, the GDC organisation officially cancelled or rather postponed this years gathering of Game Developers. The yearly conference always happens around March, but because of the Coronavirus shifting into a worldwide pandemic, multiple exhibitors & speakers pulled out in fear of their employees getting infected. GDC has therefore announced that it will postpone their event (likely until the summertime).
But what really interested me is how this affected indie game developers: Sure, their tickets will be reimbursed but what about their flights & stay? Not all of them paid the extra costs to get cancellation insurance (and even those who did seem to have a hard time convincing the airline companies to give them their money back).
Entire campaigns get built around this event, indie game studios plan their press releases, time their Kickstarters or even invest a lot of money to find their publisher there and a trip to San Francisco isnt exactly cheap…
Source: N4G PC The Corona Effect: GDC Cancelled & Indie Studios Suffer