E3 is dead for good! The Electronic Entertainment Expo, previously regarded as the premier convention and media platform for the gaming industry, has been officially discontinued.
E3, once the most significant trade show and annual showcase event in the video game industry, has been officially and permanently cancelled according to a statement provided to The Washington Post by its organizer. This confirmation comes after the industry had already largely moved away from E3, and multiple years of the event being cancelled. There were still hopes it might make a comeback, but those have now been definitively quashed.
“We know it’s difficult to say goodbye to such a beloved event, but it’s the right thing to do given the new opportunities our industry has to reach fans and partners,” Stanley Pierre-Louis, the CEO of the Entertainment Software Association, the nonprofit trade organization that ran E3, told the Post.
Pierre-Louis hinted at the primary cause of E3’s abrupt downfall and eventual extinction: game developers and publishers had gradually shifted their focus away from the event. They opted instead for their less expensive showcases aiming directly at fans, contrasting with the industry insiders and journalists who were usually the key audience at E3.
Even prior to the halt of large physical gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, publishers had started marketing directly to their consumers. They accomplished this through livestreamed shows such as Nintendo Direct, Sony’s State of Play, and the Xbox Games Showcase.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 paused larger in-person gatherings, many publishers had already started to directly showcase their products to consumers through live-streamed shows such as Nintendo Direct, Sony’s State of Play, and Xbox Games Showcase.
Moreover, after the pandemic led to the cancellation of expo and other industry events like GDC and Gamescom in 2020, Geoff Keighley revealed his online event, Summer Game Fest. This festival allowed game developers and publishers, whether AAA or indie, to showcase their creative works over several months instead of cramming everything into the typical E3 week of keynotes. As a result, a myriad of other digital events began to surface, allowing games to be marketed to a broader audience without the costs and pressures associated with E3.
E3 has not hosted a physical event since 2019. E3 2020 was scrapped due to pandemic-related concerns, but a digital version was carried out in 2021. Plans were in place for E3 to return as a mixed in-person and online event in 2023. However, these plans were cancelled, and it was announced that the soonest E3 could return would be 2024. Now, E3 is confirmed not to be making a comeback, partly because there are several other platforms that have already taken its place.
