BOSTON — Entertainment giant Sony has announced they will not be participating in this year’s PAX East event in Boston due to heightened coronavirus concerns.
PAX East is an annual gaming convention held every year in Boston which attracts thousands of people. Most attendees have already purchased their tickets for this years event that starts next week.
Sony, the maker of the Playstation gaming console, is at the center of the gaming community. Pioneers in the gaming industry, Sony brought dozens of household name games to the entertainment of people around the world.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the company said they “felt this was the safest option as the situation is changing daily,” and are “disappointed in having to cancel [their] participation in the event, but the health and safety of our global workforce is [their] highest concern.”
Organizers for the event say they will carry on as scheduled with “enhanced cleaning and sanitization across the show, including adhering to the recommendations set forth in the U.S. EPA’s Emerging Pathogen Policy regarding cleaning disinfectants effective against the COVID-19 virus."
A spokesperson for PAX said that, while they are sad Sony will not be participating in this year’s event, they “look forward to welcoming [their] friends at Sony for future PAX events.”
“The well-being of everyone at PAX - from our attendees and exhibitors to our staff on-site at every show - is of the utmost importance to ReedPOP and Penny Arcade. Across the more than 50 total PAX events around the world, we have provided a positive environment for over one million attendees to celebrate gaming,” a PAX spokesperson said. “We will continue to work diligently to ensure PAX East 2020 and our other events live up to our high standards and we will proactively keep you up to date with any further developments as we get closer to PAX East 2020.”
Greg Miller, the co-founder of Kinda Funny Games, a gaming company that has hosted panels at PAX East in the past, says the news came as a huge shock.
“I think you have to ask yourself, if you are someone who loves video games and just wanted to go to this event for a fun time, fun weekend, if the biggest publisher, the biggest hardware manufacturer currently going, the people with Playstation 4, the runaway success, if they’re worried about this not to go, I think you as a general consumer you’ll have to ask that yourself, ‘Am I confident enough to go?’” said Miller.
And while Miller says the move came as a surprise, he added that it’s important to protect employees.
“When you go to a video game event you are handling controllers, moving between different booths, you’re taking cards, swag, tee shirts and then you are eating, not washing hands, meeting developers," he said. “On top of that, there is a lot of humanity in one place.”
The event is scheduled to kickoff on Feb. 27 and last until March 1 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
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