The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, was once the biggest and most anticipated game industry event of the year.
It was a venue where game developers, publishers, and hardware manufacturers could show off their upcoming games and products to the press and the general public. However, after more than two decades of operation, E3 has been formally closed down123.
Electronic Entertainment Expo Officially Shuts Down
The Electronics Entertainment Expo died earlier today, with a brief statement reading, “After more than two decades of E3, each one bigger than the last, the time has come to say goodbye.” “I appreciate the memories.”
— E3 (@E3) December 12, 2023
It had taken a long time. Since PlayStation withdrew from the exhibition in 2019, industry insiders have speculated about its future. The following year, E3 inadvertently published a document listing the addresses and phone information of show participants, thereby doing a big portion of the gaming industry.
In retrospect, those actions were the beginning of a chain of events that ended in today’s cancellation, with the COVID-19 pandemic killing the show.
Publishers complained behind closed doors about the hefty cost of running an exhibit at the expo, which might cost millions of dollars. The lobbying organization that put on the show, the Entertainment Software Association, was branded as “out of touch” with the progress of the games business.
“The E3 arms race to have the biggest and loudest booth led to increased budgets which became harder and harder to justify,” Tencent’s North America head of communications, Chris Kramer, tells IGN. “One year at E3, I had the head of a company walk me out of our booth to point out another company’s monitor, expressing his displeasure that the other publisher’s screen was bigger and brighter than ours. The following year, the events team had to spend money renting a recently retired Jumbotron that came from an NFL stadium in order to make that exec happy. How do you track [return on investment] on a $5 – 20 million dollar booth that only exists for three days and is seen by 20,000 – 30,000 people?“
Kramer lauds Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest Play Days, describing it as a “much more civilized way to present new titles to games media” and noting that it costs a “fraction of the cost of E3.” According to another knowledgeable industry observer, E3 has had a “hard time transitioning” in the current era.
“As consumers began to adopt digital formats, the need for a retail show for distributors declined. Coupled with already popular fan shows like PAX, E3 became this sort of cost-prohibitive show that tried to transition itself into an inclusive fan event too late,” they explain. “It was ultimately left behind as major labels adopted a straight-to-consumer digital showcase event that saved them a ton of money. COVID was just the final nail in the coffin but from what I could see and what I heard from colleagues, it had already struggled for years to find its footing.”
E3’s Ascension And Fall
E3 has seen its fair share of ups and downs throughout the years. When I first started in the media in 2009, E3 had just had a two-year run as the “E3 Media and Business Summit,” with the 2007 exhibition housed in an old hangar in Santa Monica. Journalists and developers mainly despised it. Peer Schneider, co-founder of IGN, recalls the show as chaotic, adding, “LA traffic is real.”
The return to a larger format helped to rekindle some of the lost excitement, and in the years that followed, it grew to become the single biggest industry event of the calendar year.
E3 was once a taxing but exciting show of industry excess. A successful showing may sustain a publisher for months, and a poor showing could drown a game behind an avalanche of memes and negative coverage.
When Nintendo chose to skip E3 in 2013 and instead host its own Direct streams, the narrative was that it was on the verge of becoming irrelevant. But, as is so frequently the case, Nintendo was ahead of the curve.
What industry observers didn’t comprehend at the time was that the way consumers consumed games was changing. If there’s one common thread running through the discussions I’ve had since the news came that E3 was officially dead, it’s that it clung steadfastly to a format that felt increasingly out of date.
Its great innovation in 2017 was allowing supporters in, which caused overcrowding and security issues. Sony’s decision to withdraw from the expo in 2019 further harmed E3’s reputation, prompting other publishers to question if the exorbitant expense of participating was worthwhile in the age of streaming.
The ESA was unprepared to adjust when the COVID-19 epidemic struck, and physical events were canceled. A complete cancellation followed a lackluster digital debut in 2021 in 2022.
IGN heard several stories at this period that the ESA just lacked the skills to put on a large-scale event like E3, with former ESA senior director of communications Dan Hewitt alleged to be one of the event’s key drivers. Hewitt left E3 for Gearbox in 2019 but acknowledged in a message to IGN that he was the director from 2007 to 2019.
A future Without E3 May Result in More Manufactured Remarks
While later E3 gatherings would allow fans to interact with the exhibits and demos on the show floor, the convention had traditionally served as a launchpad for news from both large and small game developers.
Without an in-person industry event, gamers seeking announcements and updates on upcoming titles will have to rely more on pre-recorded presentations and press releases from major companies such as Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and EA, with fewer opportunities for press interviews and spontaneous remarks.
“The real importance of E3 is that everyone was there all at once,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities. According to Pachter, unlike the Game Developers Conference or the Tokyo Game Show, E3 drew CEOs and CFOs from throughout the industry. This also meant that the event attracted a lot of consumer attention because the mainstream press was there.
E3 originated in 1995 as a trade show designed to bring retailers together to assist in planning holiday buying. With larger and flashier press conferences, the show blossomed into a major event that drew mainstream reporters from across the world. E3’s fundamental position declined as the retail landscape evolved, with more games going online and significant releases arriving outside of the holiday shopping season.
For publishers aiming to release games the following March, having one event in the summer didn’t work. As a result, firms decided to present titles at their events instead. The final in-person E3 took place in 2019, with the final online-only E3 taking place in 2021.
“I notice companies being a lot less transparent and really wanting to control the message,” said DFC Intelligence’s principal analyst, David Cole. It’s more difficult for the press to ask critical questions when corporations keep to online presentations and don’t make executives and developers available. According to Cole, this is partly by design so that businesses may manage their messaging. Reduced transparency also makes an analyst’s job more difficult.
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“I can’t get honest answers from these companies,” Cole added. “It makes it tough because you’re just basically going with their hype of whatever they’re saying in public and you kind of got to go around and really dig to get the true story.“
Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
Companies will continue to rely on online influencers to sway public opinion in addition to making videos and sending out press releases. While some influencers are open about their level of access, others may accept payment from publishers to promote games, which is something that trusted news organizations should not do.
Now look, I get it — that’s just how this works now. YouTubers want you to pay them to cover your games. Alright, sure.
But I just don’t want to do that. It feels weird and icky and disingenuous, and I just can’t do it. So I guess our games won’t get covered on YouTube anymore!
— Mike Rose (@RaveofRavendale) November 20, 2023
Cole stated that companies relying on influencers have been going on for a while, and it will take more due diligence on the part of customers to recognize how marketing teams may be manipulating online excitement.
“The companies that ‘pulled out’ (namely Sony) made a huge mistake and killed the show,” Pachter added. “EA was dumb to move its competing show across town on the same days, and Microsoft was dumb to move to the Peacock (formerly Microsoft) theatre.” I’m hoping that the ESA realizes the show’s relevance and brings it back, but I’m not optimistic.“
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