Once upon a time in the gaming industry, E3 was considered the pinnacle event for the press to get hands-on with the latest and greatest games and tech that publishers and manufacturers have on offer.
In 2017, it pivoted from an industry-only event and swung its doors open to the public for the first time ever. An in-person event has not been held since 2019, with the 2020 event being canceled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ever since then, the event has struggled to get back on its feet.
E3 was meant to make its triumphant, “new and improved” return back this year, but as more and more staple publishers and developers continued to pull out of the event, it ended up being cancelled. Let’s dig into why exactly this all went down.
E3’s cancellation, explained
Image via Christian Petersen / Getty Images
We’ll start off with the ReedPop and ESA’s (the event organizers) perspective on why the event was canceled. Shortly following the announcement, the Global VP of Gaming at ReedPop, Kyle Marsden-Kish issued the following statement, via IGN:
This was a difficult decision because of all the effort we and our partners put toward making this event happen, but we had to do what’s right for the industry and what’s right for E3. We appreciate and understand that interested companies wouldn’t have playable demos ready and that resourcing challenges made being at E3 this summer an obstacle they couldn’t overcome. For those who did commit to E3 2023, we’re sorry we can’t put on the showcase you deserve and that you’ve come to expect from ReedPop’s event experiences.
While Marsden-Kish cites “resourcing challenges” and a lack of playable demos as a key reason behind why interested companies may not be attending the event, the simple fact remains that over the past few years, developers and publishers have been throwing their own virtual events to showcase upcoming releases, likely for a fraction of the cost of the booth space and logistics involved in attending a third-party in-person show.
This may be an indicator that gaming’s heaviest hitters are simply no longer able to justify attending E3, considering that they have found a means of delivering updates to the press and to consumers in a much more efficient manner. It remains to be seen if E3 will try and reinvent itself (again) and try to host an event next year.