Culture E3 2023 has been cancelled - "We had to do what's right for the industry and what's right for E3."

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Source: https://www.eurogamer.net/e3-2023-cancelled
Archive: https://archive.is/J98qV

E3 2023 cancelled​

UPDATE: "We had to do what's right for the industry and what's right for E3."
News by Tom Phillips Deputy Editor
Updated on 30 Mar 2023

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UPDATE 10pm UK: The ESA, E3's owner, has now issued a joint statement with E3 2023 organiser Reedpop confirming the cancellation of this year's event.
"This was a difficult decision because of all the effort we and our partners put toward making this event happen, but we had to do what's right for the industry and what's right for E3," said Kyle Marsden-Kish, Reedpop's Global VP of Gaming.

"We appreciate and understand that interested companies wouldn't have playable demos ready and that resourcing challenges made being at E3 this summer an obstacle they couldn't overcome. For those who did commit to E3 2023, we're sorry we can't put on the showcase you deserve and that you've come to expect from ReedPop's event experiences."

A press release containing the statement concludes by noting ReedPop and the ESA will continue to work together on future E3 events.


ORIGINAL STORY 9.45pm UK: E3 2023 has been called off, following days of confusion over which publishers were still due to attend.

Word of the cancellation initially came via an email sent out by the ESA, E3's owner, as reported by IGN.

The show had been due to return as an in-person event in June, in its old home at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

This year's E3 had been hailed as the event's grand return as a physical show - a chance for it to reclaim its crown as the centrepiece of the video game announcement calendar, following several years of disruption due to the Covid pandemic.

It was also set to be the first for PAX and EGX organiser Reedpop - which also owns Eurogamer - as organiser.

In January this year, it was reported that Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony would not attend this year's event for various reasons. Sony, which quit the E3 showfloor after its last showing 2018, had not been coaxed back. E3 stalwart Nintendo, meanwhile, had little to show - since its biggest game of the year Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom launches in May. Microsoft, meanwhile, was reported to be cutting costs.

Without the console manufacturer Big Three on board, subsequent reports have focused on the status of smaller publishers. Ubisoft flip-flopped on its attendance, initially confirming it was on board before U-turning, amidst reports of a delay for key 2023 game Assassin's Creed Mirage. In the wake of that news, Sega and Tencent also confirmed they had backed out.

The ESA's email reportedly said that E3 remained "a beloved event and brand" but that this year the show "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."

Eurogamer has contacted Reedpop for comment.
 
I forgot E3 was a thing. I suppose it's obsolete now when anyone can just do a show online. It also doesn't help that AAA gaming scene has been going to shit for years.
 
Its probably been a long time coming. Besides a few indie studios, the AAA teams have been pushing out clones of their older, more popular games for years. Honestly shocked it wasn't cancelled sooner.
It’s less they are pushing out the same games are more all of the big platforms have their own directs and do demos.

What’s the point in going when you can put on your own show and give way more people chances to play the games.
 
how will the dorito pope cope.
He has his shitty game awards and the summer indie garbage showcase he does.

What’s the point in going when you can put on your own show and give way more people chances to play the games.
Not to mention with all the shit being pre-recorded they rehearse more, lower pressure of being in front of a live audience and just edit out any goofy moments

The real tragedy is the loss of that. Will still have some out of touch and braindead moments, but you'll never have something like this again.

 
I don't play video games so, I don't know much about the video games industry.
but I always thought E3 was a very huge event and would never go away
so, why did it cancel?
 
I don't play video games so, I don't know much about the video games industry.
but I always thought E3 was a very huge event and would never go away
so, why did it cancel?
2020 & 2021 were because of Covid. 2022 & 2023 because of a lack of attendees from the big guys in the industry (Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, et. al.)

With livestreaming, everyone can do their big event reveals on their own time and not rush for June. Saves money too. Nintendo set the standard when they started doing Directs to announce their new shit.
 
Events like E3 and VGA just seem so plugged and fake, so a lot of people wouldn't miss them as a result. Tangentially related, I never hear about AGDQ since the troon cabal sort of disappeared. There was nothing left to cringe at.

You could get excited over games in the past through these kinds of events, but you don't need them anymore to get that. You have everything at your finger tips, so fuck em.

I thought the only reason E3 was still going is so Games Journalists and Developers could get laid.
 
He has his shitty game awards and the summer indie garbage showcase he does.


Not to mention with all the shit being pre-recorded they rehearse more, lower pressure of being in front of a live audience and just edit out any goofy moments

The real tragedy is the loss of that. Will still have some out of touch and braindead moments, but you'll never have something like this again.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=l1vmrMAqeWM
I wish someone running E3 would take notes from the 2010 show and just deliberately organize it to be a lulzfest like that.
 
iirc wasn't there a downturn with E3 after like 2006 I think where they stopped spending so much on it? I remember reading about that in the gaming press at the time.

By the end of the 2000s and start of the 2010s the whole thing was a joke people made fun of more than they enjoyed, E3's peak as being something actually cool and one big party was less than a decade it seems.



I don't play video games so, I don't know much about the video games industry.
but I always thought E3 was a very huge event and would never go away
so, why did it cancel?
For starters, E3 at it's peak was a time for gamer bros to get their pictures taken with hot chicks and get drunk with D list celebrities, the whole thing exuded "dudebro" atmosphere which mainstream gaming culture has been bending over backwards to distance itself from for years now.

There really wasn't any point to it after that shift occurred.
 
By the end of the 2000s and start of the 2010s the whole thing was a joke people made fun of more than they enjoyed,
This was *also* a result of the video streaming becoming a thing.
You have to remember, before E3 started getting streamed most people wouldn't see the actual presentations.

They'd have to rely on magazines coming out a month or two after the event or go on websites where they would just have screenshots and pictures they'd taken of the events.

Once people got to see things happening in real time, it was easy to make fun because the executives/programmers/directors were all so shit at presentation.

I knew a guy who went to E3 in the early 2000's, and maybe he just had a bad experience but outside of getting to see reveals and getting some swag (I think he got a MGS3 themed ration can with a bunch of promo stuff) he made it sound kind of lame even back then.
 
E3 hasn't been the same since they stopped having the real time Mario/Wario things where charles martinet just talked to random people with mocap avatars in-character or presented Nintendo's games in some rare cases.
 
Man, E3 was some quality early 2000s era nostalgia, along with Spoony and other early internet review shows, fandom conventions taking off, improved media distribution, and life actually getting better.

But them Obama had to get re-elected, Goobergrape had to happen, and Clown World got birthed into existence to destroy everything fun and replace it with an angry pre-op troon doing a strip tease over the bodies of our favorite franchises. Fuck this gay ass timeline.
 
I don't really care about the event itself, but it was nice having that timeframe where you knew all the big studios/publishers would be announcing their big upcoming projects. I hope the companies at least keep that up, it's something to look forward to.

By the way, Bill Clinton is still in office, right?
I hear he's a reformed Orthodox rabbi now.
 
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