Welcome to this week’s Replay, WIRED’s rundown of all the biggest videogame news out there. This week, there are more updates about the impact the coronavirus is having on the industry, as well as some talk of brain-computer interfaces. Curious yet? Read on.
The Game Developers Conference Is Now Scheduled for a New Summer Date
While the world continues to hunker down amidst the spread of Covid-19, the Game Developers Conference is already planning for a recovery. As reported by Polygon, Informa PLC, the company behind the conference, just announced GDC Summer, running August 4 to 6 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. It will be a shortened, less heavily structured conference, with some traditional talks but a stronger emphasis on micro-talks and chats as opposed to the flights of presentations and showcases that characterize the traditional GDC.
Of course, it’s unclear if things will be back to normal enough to run a conference like this by the time August rolls around. Informa says that they’re heeding the advice of health officials to make sure that GDC Summer is safe for everyone to attend. But, depending on how things go, it’s not clear if that means the event will be able to happen at all. Still, good on them for trying.
GameStop Is Doing All It Can to Remain Open During the Pandemic
GameStop, the country’s most prominent videogame retailer, is working hard to remain open during Covid-19, apparently regardless of the toll that c