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GDC 2020 brings its scheduled talks and awards to Twitch

The show must go on! GDC 2020 will still have talks, as well as the IGF and GDC Awards, but all will be delivered virtually through Twitch.

Ozzie Mejia

March 10, 2020 10:55 AM

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When the world is on the verge of a global pandemic, there's nothing left to do other than try and make lemonade out of a whole lot of lemons. With events being cancelled left and right and the worldwide panic just getting started, the organizers of the Game Developers Conference have scrambled to salvage whatever's left of this year's show. With that in mind, on Tuesday, the team at GDC announced plans to host talks that would have taken place next week on Twitch.

This comes in the wake of GDC 2020 being postponed over Coronavirus concerns, which is looking more and more like an outright cancellation by the day. The plans is for original speakers who would have given talks during GDC week to record their sessions and submit them to the GDC team. Those talks will then be streamed on the GDC Twitch channel from 9AM to 5PM PT all next week, from March 16-20. For speakers who can't deliver their talks next week, GDC is keeping the doors open for them to submit their pieces after March 20.

As for the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Choice Awards, those will also stream live on Twitch. They're now set to air on Wednesday, March 18 at 5PM PT. Trent Kusters and Kim Swift will remain the hosts for each respective event. All award categories will be presented, except for the alt.ctrl.GDC award, which is not being handed out this year.

For those who can't catch the GDC talks live, they will be made available on-demand in the weeks and months ahead. They can be found on the GDC Vault and the GDC YouTube channel.

No word on whether this means the on-site GDC show is officially cancelled, but we'll offer any updates as they come in. The streaming schedule will go up this Friday, March 13, so for all of the most up-to-date information, visit the GDC Conference website.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?