E3 is Officially No More
After two years of no showcases or events, the Electronic Entertainment Expo has officially been cancelled- and not just for the next year or two. Instead, this cancellation is for good. It seems that the original huge gaming convention is over- and it’s not coming back. This was announced by the ESA in a post on the official E3 X/Twitter account, which stated the following:
“After more than two decades of E3, each one bigger than the last, the time has come to say goodbye. Thanks for the memories.”
This news doesn’t come as a huge shock considering the track record of the event over the past few years. From companies like Nintendo and Sony dropping out of the events to the increase in viewership of Geoff Keighley’s Summer Games Fest, it seems that the writing was on the wall for what used to be gaming’s most premier yearly event. There were a variety of responses to this announcement- with some being glad to see it over and others lamenting the end of an era. The official Assassins Creed account said the following:
Similarly, Bethesda and Cyberpunk 2077’s official Twitter account shared their respects for the event:
So, what caused the death of E3. While its eventual demise in the past couple of days hasn’t been a huge surprise, if you told someone five years ago that E3 would be cancelled forever, they’d certainly be more than a little confused. How does gaming’s biggest, most mainstream event of the year get reduced to a pity party where the biggest AAA players drop out in favour of hosting their own showcases? While there were a multitude of reasons, one of the biggest was COVID-19 back in 2020, which saw the event cancelled for that year. While it did return in 2021, this was in a much more limited scope- with most companies simply presenting pre-recorded showcases of their upcoming games.
Image by Entertainment Software Association
After this, a lot of companies decided that the cost of E3 simply didn’t match the benefits they gained from it. Why spend millions to host your games on a stage in person with huge production budgets when a simple 40-minute video uploaded to YouTube gets the job done just as well. Nintendo first seized this opportunity with their Nintendo Directs- with Sony following with their State of Plays and even publishers like Ubisoft starting their own semi-regular update videos. For most people, these are much preferable to the drawn out, tacky nature of a lot of live E3 presentations. These showcases focused more on the games and less on cringey moments like Xbox’s Kinect presentation or the yearly Just Dance segments.
Image by Entertainment Software Association
In the past few years, gaming as a medium has simply grown and moved on from E3 and most live showcases. While events like Minecon are still massive, even they lack the lustre and popularity they did pre-pandemic. Despite it being inevitable, it is still sad to see the titan of E3 end on so much of a downward trajectory. For every cringy giant enemy crab or Wii Music segments, there was the reveal of God of War 2018 or Keanu Reeves announcing himself in Cyberpunk 2077. Despite how outdated E3 got towards the end, it was still a core pillar the gaming community. Its cringey and jaw dropping moments will both be missed as the future of the industry looks to something safer and more streamlined- until the next ‘E3’ eventually comes along, whatever that may be.
