E3 2023 Has Been Cancelled
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Comments
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Thursday, March 30, 2023 @ 05:23 PM
Wait -- hold up ...
You mean companies are realizing it is a WASTE of resources to send armies of marketing people to LA and putting them up in hotels, and paying for all their meals and entertainment? Have they figured out they can get at least the same -- and likely more -- coverage and exposure via online events targeted to people who actually buy games?
I mean ... where will all these people go to get drunk and do drugs in their hotel rooms, and have sex with people other than their spouses and partners, all on the companies dime? Oh the humanity!Thursday, March 30, 2023 @ 05:27 PM
Wow... Who hurt you?Thursday, March 30, 2023 @ 05:39 PM
@ LaceratedLullaby
Typical copypasta NPC response, from somebody who likely missed the point of my post.
Fact: industry events are more about rewarding insiders with free vacations than anything else. It doesn't matter the industry: finance, medical, pharmaceutical, gaming ... all of them.
Let me put it another way: events like E3 are more about facilitating waste and extravagance among industry insiders than actually marketing games to the people who buy them.
If -- instead of industry events like E3 -- companies move to the "Nintendo Direct" model and dedicate the immense resources devoted to conferences like E3 are redirected to development and QAQC, it would be a good thing. Obviously some companies have figured this out, but what they will do with the resources remains to be seen ...Thursday, March 30, 2023 @ 06:02 PM
Oh no, I was looking forward to see and hear the newest news of whoever was left.
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@LaceratedLullaby:
I mean, he is right. LA is not exactly cheap to start with. During a big expo? Better get your hotel reservation half a year in advance. Boothes aren't cheap either. And for non-NA companies you have all the trouble with getting your people into the country.
And all those costs just to share your spotlight with everyone else attending.
On top of that you have GamesCon at Cologne just a few weeks later.Thursday, March 30, 2023 @ 06:21 PM
So E4 for 2024?Thursday, March 30, 2023 @ 06:52 PM
E3 was always something to look forward to, but it was alwasy pretty mastabatory. All that extravagance for an insider only event? I could never fully wrap my head around it.
Things change and the idea of E3 really just no longer makes any kind of sense at all.Thursday, March 30, 2023 @ 07:01 PM
@ YouWontLikeMike ...
I remember seeing pictures of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Nintendo Power in the 80s / 90s. The first E3 was in 1995 I think. It was a very different world.
Somehow between then, and "booth babes" in the 2000s, they lost their way.
The ultimate problem in the gaming industry -- as well as many others -- is that the people who approve the extravagant budgets for conferences and industry events are the same people who get to enjoy the boondoggle themselves. If one has the power to give you and your friends a free vacation on the company's dime, most don't have the discipline or moral courage to make responsible choices that are good for the company, not the individual ...Thursday, March 30, 2023 @ 07:01 PM
About the only thing it could morph into would be a indie only event at this point.Thursday, March 30, 2023 @ 07:27 PM
@3 While you make good points about E3 in the modern era, seeing you call someone else an NPC is ironic and hilarious
OT: This definitely signals the final death nail in E3’s coffin. Even if the ESA says they try again next year, I doubt E3 will ever actually happen, just endless cancellations from here until E3 is officially deadThursday, March 30, 2023 @ 08:17 PM
@ JuggernautClone
I may be daft here, but I really don't understand what you're saying about me.
I feel like maybe you are trying to insult me? Are you implying that I, who am largely against the grain of the current state of the industry and gamer fanboy culture and give contrarian advice on how to avoid pitfall and disappointment and how "short" it, am like an NPC?
My understanding of the NPC meme is that NPCs are people who do not think for themselves or do not make their own decisions. They follow the herd and blindly parrot things other people are saying.
In this case, @ Lacerated Lullaby had knee-jerk responded with the hackneyed Twitter chestnut "Wow ... who hurt you" used to try to mock or shut down a strong argument on the basis that the tone is too angry or strident. The only thing missing in their response was "Yikes." Zero thought or brain activity -- total NPC.
So tell me. If you're trying to insult me, how is anything I write on this site thoughtless or mindlessly following the herd?
If I misread you, sorry -- no hard feelings. I'm just at a loss here! Maybe it is better that I never know.Thursday, March 30, 2023 @ 08:25 PM
Well at least we can dodge the ea livestream when they do it nowFriday, March 31, 2023 @ 02:04 AM
E3 is done. I'm going to miss the grand conferences though. It was always exciting to see what the big companies would reveal. Now they all do this individual lukewarm crap like Sony's "State of play", where 90% of what they show is absolute garbage.Friday, March 31, 2023 @ 05:39 AM
I have been way more interested in videogame awards anyway. It has always been "less business, more gamers".
Hopefully this means that the all the gaming developers shifts focus towards VGA instead.Friday, March 31, 2023 @ 09:09 AM
I will miss the huge surprises at the big companies press conferences. The Sony one announcing Twisted Metal is a great memory because no one saw it coming and they went all out.Friday, March 31, 2023 @ 11:47 AM
It's a shame in a way but the industry has moved on. Would much rather see online expos showing more smaller projects anywayFriday, March 31, 2023 @ 01:30 PM
Not surprising, it was fun while it lasted but Summer Game Fest and stuff like that do a far better job.Saturday, April 01, 2023 @ 05:48 AM
...and on that day, nothing of value was lost. E3 has been bordering on irrelevant/obsolete for over a decade now so this news was inevitable but they did it to themselves as @dreadnaught_ pointed out.
I haven't watched anything E3 related since approx 2018 but haven't missed it at all, because there are better independent news sources out there these days who do a better job at covering the actual games, than the ass kissing "official" sources ever did so goodbye E3, don't let the door hit you on the way out!
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Thursday, March 30, 2023
E3 2023 has been cancelled, following a number of major publishers choosing not to attend the event, which had been scheduled for June.
Most recently, Ubisoft announced that it will be skipping E3 altogether in favour of its own Ubisoft Forward broadcast on 12th June, with SEGA and Tencent subsidiary Level Infinite, swiftly following suit.
Nintendo also confirmed it wasn't going to have a presence at E3, and both Sony and Microsoft were rumoured to be giving the show a wide berth. The event was due to be a “reshaping” of the beleaguered expo, with PAX and NY Comic Con organiser ReedPop taking the reins, alongside the ESA.
According to a message from the ESA, received by IGN, E3 2023 “simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary to execute it in a way that would showcase the size, strength, and impact of our industry.”
Apparently, ReedPop and the ESA expressed interest in working together again on "future E3 events”, suggesting that the new organisers haven't quite given up on it just yet. As for E3 2023, however, that one will no longer take place.
E3 2023 had been scheduled for 13th to 16th June as the first in-person form it's taken since 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.