As the coronavirus continues to spread across the globe, EA has announced that is will be postponing and or canceling multiple upcoming competitive events for the Apex Legends Global Series and the EA SPORTS FIFA 20 Global Series.
In a recent Tweet, EA revealed to its fans that the health of the community is the number one priority. It, therefore, has decided to make decisions about events in the near future to keep that community as safe as possible. This aligns with other community events, like in Austin Texas where the SXSW event was canceled just one week before it began due to concerns with the coronavirus.
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As far as exact details with the upcoming announced EA events, some are postponed for now, and some are canceled. EA is currently postponing the Major 1 Apex Legends Global Series that was set to take place from March 13 through March 15 in Arlington Texas. The Apex Legends Global Series Online Tournament #2 set for March 21 and 23 will remain as planned, as the event can be played from home, similarly to how Bungie is allowing its employees to work from home to avoid the coronavirus.
As far as the FIFA 20 is concerned, the CONMEBOL eLibertadores Online & Live Event set for March 7 through March 8 is currently postponed. The online qualifiers for the eChampions League for March 14 and March 15 will remain as planned. The PlayStation Licensed Qualifying Event and the FUT Champions Cup Stage V in Bucharest have both been canceled. Both of these events were to take place in Europe, and due to the coronavirus hitting hardest in Asia and Europe, many events have been scrapped including Twitchcon being canceled in Amsterdam.
EA has communicated that for the events that are being postponed, they will do their best to provide new dates as soon as they have that information. They are working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) to do what they believe is best. Meanwhile, the University of Washington researchers are actually using games to fight against the Coronavirus.
The coronavirus has obviously affected more important things than gaming, as lives and loved ones are more important than simple hobbies. Video games, just like many recreations, continue to be an escape from some of the real-world stresses, those world-stresses can sometimes creep back into those hobbies and fight against them. The gaming industry is certainly being impacted by COVID-19.