Paris Games Week has been cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic

Paris Games Week isn't the most well-known videogame event in North America, but it's a big one: It attracted 317,000 visitors over five days in 2019. That's not going to happen this year, however, as organizers announced today that, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 event scheduled for October 23-27 has been cancelled.

"It is with great emotion that we have made the difficult decision to cancel Paris Games Week, initially scheduled from 23rd to 27th October and which would have marked our 10th anniversary," the Syndicat des Editeurs de Logiciels de Loisirs wrote.

"The current context and the necessary anticipation of both the technical and logistical complexities of an event such as Paris Games Week have led us to cancel this edition. This year should have been special, with a line-up full of new releases, and an anniversary edition which we were thrilled to celebrate with you."

The coronavirus outbreak has forced the cancellation of just about every major game show in 2020, including E3, Gamescom, SXSW, and QuakeCon. A plan to hold an "online experience" to replace E3 was quickly abandoned, but a digital Gamescom event is still in the works and multiple publishers including Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and Devolver Digital are planning digital shows of their own. We've got a full schedule of all the replacement online events that we know about so far right here.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.