Canadian Devs Are Backing Out of Attending GDC

But the Sweden-based developer is concerned about the political direction the US has taken. “It’s clear to me that the United States is rapidly heading in a fascist direction due to a party that has completely detached from reality,” Holmér says.

The final straw, she says, was the administration’s erasure of LGBTQ+ identities. “They just want to get rid of people like me … going through airports is stressful enough as it is as an LGBT person, but with all this, it’s even worse. Even if we disregard the airport, just being in a country where, somehow, half of the electorate is signing off on what Trump is doing, is legitimately scary.”

Look Elsewhere

The United States has long acted as a hub for gaming, but it may not remain one if international developers don’t want to do business in Trump’s America. WIRED previously reported that trans and gender-nonconforming developers both domestically and abroad were already concerned about their ability to work safely in the industry. Those concerns are spreading.

“With the way the United States is going right now, I don’t think it’s possible to invite international guests [there] and have them feel safe, especially those of minority groups like myself,” Holmér says. “I’d love to see the epicenter of game development move out of the US, at least during these times.”

WIRED reached out to GDC organizers to ask if they had received requests for refunds or heard from developers who felt they could not safely travel to the US. “GDC 2025 is on pace to deliver another strong event, with overall attendance tracking in line with previous years, expo registrations up [year-over-year], and steady enthusiasm from attendees who have registered or are actively planning their time at the event,” spokesperson Brian Rubin-Sowers says.

Van Lierop says to weather this moment, the game industry needs to look beyond the US. “I think for our own survival as an industry group, we need to be more internationally minded,” he says. “We need to understand more about how to make games for a global audience. And we can’t really afford to be so North American–centric.”

Hinterland, van Lierop says, will not be traveling to the States anytime soon in any official capacity. Van Lierop says that while he won’t be telling team members what to do, he doesn’t feel that it’s safe or responsible to travel into the US to do business. “Not everybody on my team is a white male, and I’m responsible for all of them,” he says. “I don’t think we can feel confident that someone who’s gay or has expressed certain political beliefs in their social media even could confidently travel down to the US right now and feel like they would make it back over the border without potentially some issues.”

Reasonable people, van Lierop says, “can’t rely on the expectation that things are going to function as they have for the last hundred years, that things are just normal … that people will behave motivated by common sense and logic and reason.”