Swine Flu Keeps Japanese Staff of Square & Koei Away From E3

May 21, 2009

Two more video game publishers have pulled their Japanese employees out of the upcoming E3 Expo in Los Angeles due to concerns over swine flu.

Develop reports that Square Enix and Koei join Capcom in withholding Japanese employees from the highly-anticipated show:

Square Enix has cancelled plans for its Kingdom Hearts team to attend the show, whilst Koei has confirmed that an unspecified number of its Japanese employees will not be travelling to the event...

However, like Capcom, both publishers will be represented at E3 by U.S. and European staffers. According to Develop, neither Sony nor Nintendo plan to withhold employees due to swine flu.

AFP reported this morning that there are 281 confirmed cases in Japan, although most are mild. There have been no deaths attributed to the virus in Japan so far and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso urged the public to be calm.

Via: gamebizblog

6 comments
Buzz It
Forgot your password?
Username :
Password :

Shout box

You're not permitted to post shouts.
DorthLous: Passed 1.5M$. And I'd also say that Brutal Legend is far from being a bad game. I just think it was a few levels under what people expected from the people working on the project.02/11/2012 - 8:25am
Technogeek: Brutal Legend wasn't bad so much as "marketing had no idea how the game actually played", causing it to suffer accordingly.02/10/2012 - 10:38pm
RedMage: It looks the CIA's website has been DDOS'ed. Anon?02/10/2012 - 7:52pm
RedMage: Brutal Legend.02/10/2012 - 7:52pm
ddrfr33k: Has anything Tim Schafer ever made been of crap caliber? I'm struggling to think of one...02/10/2012 - 7:37pm
Guamish: I think it is in good hands. Tim did a game for the GDC award show and that was fun for how short it was.02/10/2012 - 12:22pm
Andrew Eisen: It'll be tragic if the game ultimately sucks.02/10/2012 - 12:17pm
james_fudge: $1.3 million02/10/2012 - 11:32am
Uncharted NES: Germany Says It Won't Sign ACTA [Update: ... Yet]- http://tinyurl.com/7r2twrg02/10/2012 - 11:21am
Andrew Eisen: Damn. Double Fine's Kickstarter fund has already passed a million dollars.02/09/2012 - 8:16pm
Andrew Eisen: Audrey didn't quote the sassy parts. Here's IGN's article: http://wii.ign.com/articles/121/1218359p1.html And here's my original post: http://tinyurl.com/7y68a3902/09/2012 - 7:50pm
james_fudge: I hope you some said something sassy! Where's the link?02/09/2012 - 7:46pm
Andrew Eisen: Hey, neat. IGN quoted a blog I had writen only two hours earlier. I certainly timed that one pretty well.02/09/2012 - 7:38pm
Andrew Eisen: Toki Tori has been added to the Humble Bundle for Android.02/09/2012 - 5:11pm
james_fudge: Thanks for the heads-up DorthLous02/09/2012 - 4:33pm
DorthLous: Will do, my apologies.02/09/2012 - 4:14pm
Andrew Eisen: I appreciate the heads up but please keep typo alerts to the specific article's comments or PMs.02/09/2012 - 3:33pm
DorthLous: The title says 30, but in the article, the developer says it's like a 20% net tax http://www.gamepolitics.com/2012/02/09/developers-call-facebook-currency-transaction-fee-thirty-percent-tax02/09/2012 - 2:43pm
Uncharted NES: If they actually release Final Fantasy XI for PlayStation Vita, then I will consider buying one.02/09/2012 - 12:13pm
Uncharted NES: Customers Petition Apple to End Worker Abuse with 250,000 signatures- http://tinyurl.com/6vpuom202/09/2012 - 11:28am
All shouts

Be Heard - Contact Your Politician