The Leisure Software program Affiliation is insisting that E3 is not lifeless fairly but, although the Los Angeles Metropolis Tourism Board of Commissioners would beg to vary.
A ResetEra submit shared a snippet of the board’s most up-to-date assembly, which appeared to all however affirm the loss of life of the once-beloved gaming conference. A footnote contained in the assembly’s packet for conference gross sales, dated June 12, reads “consists of E3 cancellations for 2024 and 2025.” Whereas that does not account for its future in 2026 and past, it appeared like the ultimate nail within the coffin. In spite of everything, everybody appeared to just do superb with out E3 round this 12 months, and final 12 months. It was a shaky time for the conference even earlier than the pandemic, however now it appeared nearly sure that we would not see its grand return.
By no means say by no means, apparently, as a result of a spokesperson for the ESA has tried to snuff out any untimely grieving (or celebrating). Issuing an announcement to GamesIndustry.biz, the commerce physique says it is “at the moment having conversations about E3 2024 (and past), including that “no ultimate choices concerning the occasion have been made presently.”
It is a fairly obscure response to an nearly definitive footnote from the LA tourism board, nevertheless it may imply a mess of issues for E3’s future. My principle is there is a fairly excessive probability we’ll see a digital model of the occasion return subsequent 12 months, culling the necessity for a bodily presence and all of the monetary woes that include it. It could make sense with ESA president and CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis’s feedback earlier this 12 months concerning the probability of an E3 2024, too.
From an ESA word despatched to members (recreation publishers): “We count on E3 to proceed to be part of ESA’s storytelling and are at the moment in dialog with plenty of stakeholders about what E3 2024 (and past) ought to appear to be to finest serve the interactive leisure business.”June 22, 2023
“We’re dedicated to offering an business platform for advertising and convening however we wish to be certain that we discover that proper steadiness that meets the wants of the business,” he informed GamesIndustry.biz shortly after this 12 months’s E3 cancellation in March. “We’re definitely going to be listening and guaranteeing no matter we wish to provide meets these wants and at the moment, we may have extra information to share.”
Appears to me like a digital-only occasion is the probably future for E3 proper now, however even when it occurs, will individuals be that bothered? The reception to its online-only presence final 12 months was tepid at finest, with our on-line editor Fraser Brown saying he did not suppose it ought to ever return to an in-person occasion. “I am glad E3 goes digital once more, although I do not suppose it is going to survive indefinitely on this kind,” he wrote final 12 months.
As for me, I truly fairly miss the chaotic weirdness that E3 introduced, however I do not suppose we’ll ever get it again even when it manages to return with a bang. We definitely acquired some oddities with this 12 months’s Summer time Recreation Fest and past—unusual Nic Cage appearances and sea shanties abound—however as senior editor Wealthy Stanton wrote in March: E3’s disappearance is a rattling disgrace.
