This week, tens of thousands of game developers and producers will once again gather in San Francisco, as they have since 1988, for the weeklong Game Developers Conference. But this year’s show will be missing many international developers who say they no longer feel comfortable traveling to the United States to attend, no matter how relevant the show is to their work and careers. “We never felt super safe, but now we are not willing to risk it.”Out of the COVID, into the Trump adminSome international developers had been reconsidering their GDC attendance before this year. While health concerns limited some developers’ travel after that, the cancellation also prompted many to reconsider whether the trip had been worth it in the first place. “The value of in-person events has kind of stepped off since COVID pushed things virtual,” one developer, who asked to remain anonymous, told Ars.

Source: International New York Times March 09, 2026 18:58 UTC