The great gaming convention has breathed its last. The producers around E3 have officially announced that E3 2023 will no longer be happening as huge gaming studios, such as Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, are putting on their own showcases.
This was always bound to happen, and I’m kind of surprised it didn’t happen sooner.
E3 was one of the hallmark dates on the calendars of every individual inside and outside the gaming industry as it not only provided a huge forum for all the major and minor game developers to showcase their new products, but it also allowed the fans to personally interact with one another and the developers behind the games they loved the most.
The idea of E3 truly was a novel, radical invention during the mid 1990’s (1995 to be exact) as it instantly became one of the largest, most prestigious gaming conventions over the next 30 or so years. And now its dead.
Yeah, all things have to come to an end at some point, and E3 is now meetings its drawn-out fate this summer as even though the producers at the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the association that created and has run E3, announced its return after two cancellations (2020, 2022) and one horrible virtual show (2021), the major gaming studios finally realized they could set up their own huge conventions with unlimited time constraints.
I really don’t know how it took Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Activision, etc. this long to realize that they could host their own multi-day, 4-6 hour long/showcasing event that only displayed their own games and products, rather than share some 1–3-hour event on a single day with dozens of other companies all vying for the same attention and airtime.
I mean, it’s not like the ESA trademarked the idea of an E3-like creation back in 1995, nor is it true that Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Activision, etc. don’t have more financial resources than the Association.
Moreover, cancelling the event twice and showcasing a horrible online event in 2021 was such a cataclysmic reputational hit to E3 that the producers of the show should be thanking whatever god they worship the event lasted as long as it did.
Like I said, it only took a major absence or mess-up by the ESA for these major gaming studios to realize they could showcase their own games on their own time and dollar, which is exactly what happened during and after the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. The likes of Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc. all put together their own similar showcases that made E3 redundant as a viewer/gamer could simply watch the Microsoft showcase livestream one day, and then watch the Sony livestream the next.
The need to be at E3 to get the latest coverage, information, and “scoop” about new game releases died the moment the world turned heavily into live streaming…which is also not-so-coincidentally the last time E3 was relevant in the public eye.
Sorry all E3 fans, but the likelihood the 2024 event happens is about as high as if Abe Lincoln ducked at the Ford Theater.
In other words, it isn’t happening.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Wikimedia Creative Commons License/Author: BOMBA) (BOMBA, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
