E3, the video game industry’s largest annual expo, has been cancelled.
The show was due to return after years of Covid-19 hiatus this June in Los Angeles, but in a joint statement, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) of the US and event company Reedpop announced it would no longer continue. .
Known as “Gaming Christmas” by fans, E3 has been a fixture on the gaming industry calendar since 1995, and has traditionally been where game publishers and console manufacturers announce what’s next. for the players.
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii U are among the consoles that have been announced at the event. Its cancellation leaves the games industry without a dominant focal point to market new titles; instead, since Covid, the trend has been toward live-streamed shows where publishers announce and show new titles virtually.
“This was a difficult decision due to all the effort we and our partners put into making this event happen, but we had to do what was right for the industry and what was right for E3,” Reedpop’s Kyle Marsden-Kish said in a statement. jointly with ESA.
“We appreciate and understand that interested companies would not have playable demos ready and that resource challenges made being at E3 this summer a hurdle they were unable to overcome.
“For those who committed to E3 2023, we’re sorry we couldn’t provide the showcase you deserve and have come to expect from ReedPop event experiences.”
In the past, E3 had been open to industry professionals and the public alike, with around 66,000 attendees in 2019, before Covid shut down large-scale events. In the past decade, his big press conferences have been broadcast live to a global audience online, generating a lot of buzz and increased media attention. In its absence, rival online-focused events have sprung up to fill the void, but none have achieved the notoriety and mainstream attention of E3.
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According to their statement, ReedPop and the Entertainment Software Association still plan to collaborate on future events.
