E3 2023 is canceled and the gaming industry is in mourning. Like my colleague Ash Parrish, I’ve always wanted to go, but I don’t think I’ll ever get the chance; the industry has changed enough that it probably won’t return.
Even the organizers of E3 do not seem optimistic. The president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) completely dodged when GamesIndustry.biz asked if the event would return in 2024.
“We are committed to providing an industry platform for marketing and convening, but we want to make sure we find the right balance that meets the needs of the industry,” Stanley Pierre-Louis told the publication. “We’re certainly going to listen and make sure that what we want to offer meets those needs, and at that point, we’ll have more news to share.” Compare with 2022, when the organizers were already talking about 2023 when they canceled that year’s show.
A press release from event organizer ReedPop gave a small glimmer of hope, saying that he and ESA would “continue to work together on future E3 events.” But I just don’t think future E3 events will happen at all.
The pandemic proved that games could survive without E3. The last year that E3 was held in person was in 2019; the event was canceled in 2020, held as a digital extravaganza in 2021, and transitioned from in-person to online-only, finally being canceled entirely last year in 2022. Yet even without E3 as an anchor, developers and Publishers have found ways to make a splash that doesn’t include the investment required for a large booth on the show floor of the expo.
And when the pandemic hit, the industry already had a playbook to follow: a playbook written by Nintendo.. Since 2011the company has had tremendous success with its Nintendo Direct video presentations, allowing anyone in the world to see big game reveals without actually attending a physical show.
Since then, nearly every major game company has embraced the format to create their own newsworthy moments, and they’re pre-recorded moments that don’t break on stage or could embarrass in front of a live audience. Videos can be posted at a time that suits the company instead of cramming it into June, allowing them to create their own news cycles about upcoming games without having to share the spotlight with anyone else. They can then submit journalists’ software over the Internet, no need to wait for a locked demo console.
The pandemic has also shown that companies can release entire generations of consoles without significant hands-on opportunities before they debut. Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S launched in November 2020, and while limitations created in part due to the pandemic made them nearly impossible to find for years, these consoles have proven to be successful. Why bother showing off new hardware at E3 in the future?
Now that the suits know how to use Zoom, Slack, and Teams, who still needs exposure?
For years, one of the remaining pitches for E3 has been that it’s a place for companies to do business in person, have face time, and shake hands on stage to promote their brands. But even executives have been forced to figure out how to do those things remotely during the pandemic and may no longer need them.
Regardless, the big console makers have generally moved away from E3 of late. PlayStation skipped E3 2019 in favor of hosting its own video presentations at different times of the year. Nintendo had already said it wouldn’t be participating in E3 this year, and while that doesn’t stop the company from making news in June, it might be content to let The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom talk. As soon as Nintendo pulled out, I really started to worry that E3 2023 wouldn’t take place. But after Microsoft opted out of this year’s show floor in favor of its own Los Angeles storefront around star fieldit felt like the writing was on the wall.
And in the absence of E3, Geoff Keighley stepped in to fill the void. It launched its first all-digital Summer Game Fest in June 2020, and has hosted one every year since then as a venue for E3-like game bombs. Sure, some years were better than others, but with E3 now completely out of the picture for 2023, it seems likely that this year’s Fest will absorb some of what was planned for the convention.
I’m not saying in-person conventions are dead. E3 hasn’t actually been the biggest video game convention for years: it’s a sixth the size of Gamescom, which takes place in Germany every year, and other conventions abroad are bigger, too. Even in the US, last week’s Game Developers Conference had news and January’s Consumer Electronics Show was surprisingly fun, just to name two recent examples.
E3 no longer seems to meet the needs of the gaming industry, so the industry has moved on.
