It's June, which means we should be celebrating E3 right now. But we're not, as it was cancelled for the second time in three years back in February.
That doesn't mean we're not getting any video game news though, as we're being fed a glutton of gaming presentations, spearheaded by Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest. This year, perhaps more than ever, many speculated that E3 2022's cancellation marks the beginning of the end for the hugely popular convention, but the president of the show's parent company, ESA, has said otherwise.
In an interview with The Washington Post, the ESA's Stan Pierre-Louis stated that “We’re excited about coming back in 2023 with both a digital and an in-person event. As much as we love these digital events, and as much as they reach people and we want that global reach, we also know that there’s a really strong desire for people to convene — to be able to connect in person and see each other and talk about what makes games great.”
While Keighley's event includes both a (small) in-person event in Los Angeles and a digital showcase, Pierre-Louis wants to keep things traditional. E3 has been an in-person media event since 1995, and he wants to keep this the same while acknowledging that this new era of digital showcases is all about "experimentation" so that companies work out how best to sell their products:
I think there is a space for a physical show; I think there’s an importance of having digital reach. Combining those two, I think there is a critical element of what we think E3 can provide.
E3 hasn't been in-person since 2019, with the last E3 show in 2021 being digital-only. The ESA cancelled the convention in 2020, too. If the show is to return next year, we'll let you know the dates as soon as we have them.
Further reading
- Summer Game Fest And Games Conference Schedule 2022: Dates, How To Watch And Everything You Need To Know
- Round Up: Every Physical Game From Limited Run's Summer Showcase Coming To Switch
Do you want to see the return of E3? Let us know in the comments.
[source washingtonpost.com]
Comments 39
This smells like desperation.
But will anyone care? Is the question. E3 needs to pivot away from being a social event for casual gamers and revert back into being purely a networking opportunity for developers and publishers.
E3 just makes June so much more organised. I wouldn't mind it returning.
I think if June 2022's "not E3" goes well, E3 2023 will be cancelled.
Yes! I can't wait for more online conferences about workplace tolerance and sensitivity!
Look, if Geoff Keighley fails to deliver a decent experience, I'll welcome E3 back with open arms.
I'm all for E3 returning if it means more moments like "Giant Enemy Crab", "RIIIIDGE RACER" or Tak Fuji and his "One mirrion twoops".
Didn't they say the exact same thing last time round as well? I want the buzz of E3 to come back as much as everyone else (@HammerGalladeBro shows exactly what I'm talking about) but to say I have doubts would be an understatement.
I do want live gameplay demos to come back though, that's my favourite part of E3 easily.
In an industry that’s shying away from physical media and maybe even consoles soon, it seems strange that any company would want to go back to flying to California and putting your staff up in hotels for 5 days, to build a booth with interactive demo stations and conferences and entertainment and food and drink and gifts for journalists, when you can just send them a demo code for your game and post some video on YouTube.
Sony (a CONSOLE MANUFACTURER) ducked out, six of last year's presentations ended up on the So Bad It's Horrible page, and they accidentally doxxed the last physical event's attendees. I don't doubt they'll try, but they have an uphill battle getting the goodwill they've lost back.
Good, I'd much prefer an E3 than a SGF or TGA with Geoff.
Watching E3 is like my christmas, so I'm all for it coming back.
Yeah I doubt it. I love E3 but the ESA is still a joke.
That's nice to see. 🙂 So much for E3 being "dead".
Sad Sammy B. noises 😏😏
I want E3 to come back terribly, but I also don't how they actually can at this point with how much good will they've squandered at ESA and how they squandered their hold on the event by not hosting a digital show again this year. It would have been much easier to hold onto if they still had had E3-lite this year. I love that there's that twinge of hope for one more year, but getting publishers back on board to do it at this point has got to be ridiculously difficult with what they charge vs what they offer. MS would jump in easily which may set the tone for others. Maybe even Nintendo since they're the only one not doing anything with Keighley and it's in their backyard. I can't see Sony even entertaining the thought of a return, they ended even their own "we're too important for E3" events, because they're too important for themselves, too. And most of the other publishers have moved on to being comfortable with their own thing (or have all been bought up.)
Some want the trade show back, but trade shows, I think are dead forever. What value E3 has left is the public spectacle. And there's room for that. But I'm not sure ESA knows how to do it. And I don't think publishers trust the ESA to do it or are willing to pay their fees. We need someone to organize a new E3 centered around spectacle, incorporating the digital, and making it about tying together one big unified event of events rather than necessarily flying everyone to a single convention center in LA. It can be a broader organized event, not unlike keighley's event but better coordinated with bigger money behind it with more rules keeping everyone at pace, and more authority to pull it all together. And most importantly for one specific week.
The Olympics are evolving starting with Paris to be a central unifying pageant amidst many smaller venues spread throughout France, and extending to the carribbean for kayaking. E3 could evolve the same way. One single convention center is a bad move today. A central show with satellite shows and individual shows could be a good move like the Paris Olympics idea. Heck the biggest shows with MS and Sony were outside the actual show floor anyway, so there's no reason not to embrace that rather than try to gouge publishers more.
I want it back, but, they don't seem to have offered a compelling plan of WHY publishers should pay them after learning their sales didn't plummet without them. We know why WE want it back. ESA needs to figure out how to sell why PUBLISHERS should want it back. Until 2019 it was "because they couldn't afford to miss it". Now publishers know they can. So what can reel them back?
For our part, we still need a venue for Audrey Drake to threaten genocide while playing children's games. Gaming is empty without it.
@EVIL-C LOL, yeah...... there's that....
YES E3 IS NOT DEAD! (Hopefully)
@MrGawain Yeah, seems kind of archaic and pointless in this day and age. But I'm also an insane introvert who would always rather meet online vs. in person.
It can still be treated as a convention, rather than a trade show. That's why E3 has not yet lost its relevance.
Just let it die, man. I vastly prefer the random Twitter info drops, they always perk me up rather than sitting and waiting for the big show.
@NEStalgia That's a lot of paragraphs just to say "not gonna happen". 😉
Honestly i haven't missed E3 at all, i prefer to get the presentations without all thier added fluff
No it won't, and it's not needed nor wanted anymore.
I miss E3, the excitement and huge announcement blowouts. But I think they’ve killed it by canceling it this year. They won’t get the industry back on board.
It really isn't needed and hasn't been for a long time.
@rjejr I want it to happen. I hope it will happen. I just can't see them having an angle to make it happen... But I do hope they have one.
Without the Verizon show and tolerance classes
I am happy to hear that but I am unsure with the format of E3 after all the changes in the last couple years. Multiple big time publishers and obviously the big three have had chances to experiment beyond the E3 format in their own way. I am wondering if some of them will return if or E3's shape has been changed forever. Kind of eager to see to be honest even if the last E3 I truly enjoyed was in 2016 since I was there in person.
They remain a partner of Nintendo. Nintendo will pay the money to have a show floor. So at the very least it’s a little more of Nintendo besides the direct reels.
@NEStalgia It would be nice, but if you go back and read your post you'll see all the reasons why it probably isn't going to happen. This is like E3's 3rd time at death's door now, even a cat only has 9 lives.
@rjejr Yeah, I know, and I'm not expecting a revival, but there is demand for it and maybe with a map and both hands, the ESA can eventually locate it's rear end and pull its head out of it. There's a market for a giant gaming convention. and marketers would be fools to turn away a market demanding marketing. But the ESA is too bumbling to market the marketing convention. Can still hope.
2020 was a given, it needed to be cancelled. 2021 was smart, it was a bad show, but they scraped together a salvaged digital event to keep E3 on the map as placeholder. Good plan. I honestly think they were right cancelling the physical conference this year, it was smart, and I think anyone not cancelling these sorts of travel-heavy things still this year is probably insane, or in perpetual denial and beyond hope. BUT why cancel digital? That made no sense, and that erased their claim to holding the event in the future. They had one job - maintain the placeholder and brand. I don't know who made that call but it was either born from publishers just having no interest in E3 (at which point, why pretend there's one next year?) Or they're even more bumbling than I thought (at which point, why pretend they're capable of holding one next year?)
E3 needs to be a thing. ESA just doesn't seem to be the organization to do it, and Keighley is a dude on an ego trip, not a wealthy event organizing institution or industry group. Keightley's grandstanding endangered a real event, but honestly, ESA probably needs to work with him if they're going to pull together a focused week again. Given the number of companies willing to debase themselves enough to work with Keighley (excluding Nintendo and inexplicably including Sony), it's clear there's some interest in holding an organized event at this time of year, even if it's forever digital. The only one stopping them is ESA's incompetence. Even freaking Sony's trying to do it....kinda.
I don't think they can get that toothpaste back in the tube. All the big names have figured out how to get their message out there without a big in-person, and they didn't need E3 to do it. Probably saved some companies literal millions in marketing. What's the compelling reason to go back to a big stadium?
@NEStalgia ESA - see EA Soccer Club, or whatever they're calling it. E3 is FIFA. I'm really screwing this analogy up big time ain't I? 😝
King Keighly doesn't need E3, he's already running things, see The Game Awards. See also Gamescon, Tokyo Game Show, and some others only people outside of the US know about, but if E3 goes away we'll learn to learn about them. US is done for anyway, we'll be in the middle of a huge civil war by this time next year. Just waiting for Biden to pass peacefully in his sleep and Harris to take the job, that's the finale. Game over. #RIPUSA 🌼
That's what they said last year.
Good, E3 is waay better then this summer game fest crap.
@rjejr Keighley's floundering so badly. I mean props for doing kind of an ok-ish job on it, but it's obvious that compared to the mega-money and know-how of ESA, as bad and blundering as they are, he's just an amateur playing around. ESA absolutely is incompitent. No question, But Keighley is a long, long, long way away from 190ft banners hanging in downtown LA for a few hundred thousand people convening relatively smoothly. ESA really is good at event organizing. They're just bad at everything else.
Gamescon and TGS....they're definitely not E3, that's the problem. Yeah, the US doesn't even know they exist, but the format is really just the show floor, no real presentations. And what we really want are the presentations. Every time I hear about those shows it's like "oh, there's game stuff there?" If they could become the new E3, I wouldn't care about E3. There's no Gamescon Treehouse live, or TGS Sony show hammering it in.
LOL, is that before or after we accidentally declare war on both Russia and China in the same month, and then pretend the economy is fine? It's beautiful. I love how from that post I can't even tell if you're left, right, R, D......it's all a giant merged fail and resignation to the immutable doom. Just as it should be....you're becoming me. It was only a matter of time. Welcome.
Where's Pikmin 4?
“We’re excited about coming back in 2023 with both a digital and an in-person event." But didnt he say the same thing for E3 2022 back in 2021? insert thinking emoji
I don't need E3.
I just only need upcoming kids games information that I found from play-asia.
insert the Sure, Jan gif here.
I miss E3, because waking up for E3 felt like it was a Christmas morning, it was always so exciting to me. Things like the TGA and SGF I still watch, but I’m not excited for them, I’m trying to pick out a few announcements I like from them
@NEStalgia When the planet chews us all up and spits us out won't matter what leaders we bowed too. 💨
Pikmin 4 is still a launch title for Switch DS. I'm just not sure if Switch DS is Switch Pro, Switch 2 or Switch 3, but when we get it we'll get Pikmn 4. Hardware & software revealed at the same time.
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