What was once the most important video games expo is in the world has officially ceased to be, after 20 years.
In the last few years the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) has been cancelled year after year, as a result of more and more of the biggest video games publishers undermining the event.
The expo has been in limbo since it was last held in pre-pandemic 2019 (with the exception of an all-virtual event in 2021, that nobody watched) and although it comes as no surprise, it’s now been officially abandoned.
E3 owners, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), have admitted that the game is up and that there are currently no plans to ever bring the event back, either to Los Angeles or online.
CEO of the ESA, Stanley Pierre-Louis, confirmed that E3 is shutting down for good, and added:
‘We know the entire industry, players, and creators alike have a lot of passion for E3. We share that passion. 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.’
Year by year more and more publishers stopped attending the event, starting with PlayStation and EA, but eventually including all of the big players, many of who resented spending money on the expensive stands and presentations, which, up until the final few years, were only ever seen by media and retailers.
‘There were fans who were invited to attend in the later years, but it really was about a marketing and business model for the industry and being able to provide the world with information about new products.
‘Companies now have access to consumers and to business relations through a variety of means, including their own individual showcases,’ Pierre-Louis told The Washington Post.
Lots of big publishers have their own individual showcases now, like Xbox’s Games Showcase, PlayStation’s State Of Play, and Nintendo Direct, although that was always the case during the show’s heyday, with the events simply taking place in L.A. a day or two before the show proper began.
What made E3 itself so important was that it was the only time in the year when the entire industry met up physically in one place, making it ideal for working out business deals and bringing together unlikely partnerships.
Publishers were also in direct competition with each other, trying to outdo each other for the most exciting announcements and most highly praised games.
That atmosphere no longer exists but, more importantly, the number of opportunities to preview new titles and interview developers has also been drastically reduced since before the pandemic.
It’s now commonplace for major new games to launch without any hands-on previews or meaningful interviews, which publishers have realised work out to their benefit – as customers base their buying decision purely around the marketing.
The death of E3 isn’t a surprising piece of news but it is a sad one, that puts video games and the people that make them under even less scrutiny than ever.
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