Thursday, March 30th 2023
E3 2023 Officially Canceled
Following the exodus of many high profile companies within the gaming and entertainment industries, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has announced the cancellation of E3 2023. The event was to be held on June 13th through the 16th at the Los Angeles Convention Center, and would have been the first in-person E3 in 4 years, the last in-person event having been in 2019. In an email sent out to members the ESA stated that E3, "remains a beloved event and brand," but that the 2023 event, "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." The email ends with no mention of the event's future.
ESA has issued an official public statement from Kyle Marsden-Kish, Global VP of Gaming, on the cancellation:
In the public statement ReedPop and the ESA assures that they will continue to work together on future E3 events. With the last two years of cancellations, and uncertainty surrounding the event drawing in the headlining industry partners who have independently chosen to host their own online or hybrid events, it remains unclear as to what a future E3 would look like.
Source:
IGN
ESA has issued an official public statement from Kyle Marsden-Kish, Global VP of Gaming, on the cancellation:
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. 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.
31 Comments on E3 2023 Officially Canceled
good riddance I say. short term greed has destroyed the industry, just like short term greed is destroying everything in our societies. if it wasn't for indie devs, I would have given up on gaming a long time ago.
It has done absolutely nothing for the customer base. And E3 has been a joke for too many years.
Nothing of value now has been lost.
The same goes with the Games Developer's Conference. Nothing but a marketing circle jerk now as well.
You can also say that with GAMA as well
I used to pay to get into those site (up to 5 grand per year for week/weekends/vip on those sites) and at one time you used to get good information about the tech and upcoming products. But like anything of today, greed took over and what you see in the Gaming/Tech industry is what you are seeing in the computer desktop industry right now.
Overall, it's pretty damned bad.
GDC is a tradeshow with expert programmers sharing the latest-and-greatest shader optimizations, C++ programming topics, and so forth. They're making good presentations every year.
Bruh it's e3, not the primaries. The harsh reality is that E3's influence has no purpose in a world where leaks are a near daily occurrence and any company can easily hold a virtual press conference and take advantage of social media buzz to push their product with just as much effort and arguably more success. Presenting to a group of game "journalists" who can barely play games (remember cuphead?) and hardly impress in the writing sphere either just isnt worth the time or energy.
Kinda like the grammys, what was once a celebration of the art has turned into a total joke that nobody watches anymore, in a world where your average youtube critic does a better job of sifting through trash then all the professional media combined.
gpuopen.com/gdc-presentations/2022/GDC_Breaking_Down_The_World_Of_Athia.pdf
Etc. etc. Its good stuff. I suggest that intermediate shader programmers and optimizers really pay attention to the talks at GDC. None of these discussions are easy, modern video games requires a lot of linear algebra, graphics know-how, hardware knowledge and more.
I honestly don't know of any better conferences than GDC on this subject. But if you're aware of any, please let me know.
Either way I dont see the point you are trying to make here. You like it therefore its good?
There is no need for an event to hype people up over new games when the bar has been trampled into the ground and a great majority of the community are extremely weary of the big publishers that have been mired in nothing but controversy over their treatment of staff and issues with overzealous montisation.
How many times can a person look at any 3rd person looter shooter game from Ubisoft for the umpteenth time and genuinely say "YES, I want me some of that!!" ???
How many times can people get hyped for bad game ports like TLOU? or the pile of poo that turned out to be the new Saints Row game?
The first big show to go was Comdex (RIP 2003) but it was really Apple who tolled the death bell when they declared that the 2008 Macworld Expo would be the last one they would attend (one year after the iPhone was announced).
Remember that E3 was a reincarnation of Summer CES. It had a solid run for about 10 years. By 2005, most of these major tradeshows had WiFi connectivity on the show floor and regular notebook computers (like Apple iBooks) had featured wifi functionality for several years.
While in person conferences still make sense for some developer events, it is increasingly clear that online is the way to reach a larger audience. This has been the trajectory for long before the COVID pandemic. Apple has moved their WWDC to a largely online event; I'm sure Dreamforce (Salesforce), OracleWorld and Google IO aren't far behind.
Unless ReedPop can successfully transition E3 into an online event, this show is basically over.
There's still some justification for in person tradeshows under very certain conditions that mostly don't apply to the technology industry. Things like wine industry trade tastings, cosmetics shows, etc. where there's a primary activity that can't be just doled out with some digital code attached to an e-mail.
I mean, if you're not a programmer, maybe its hard to see why this kind of talk is useful. And that's fine, GDC ain't a conference for gaming announcements or that sorta stuff. Its probably irrelevant to most people. But its definitely one of the more important professional programming conventions in the entire industry. That's not changing any time soon.
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Anyway, E3 itself has become less relevant because all these other conferences have sprung up and eaten its lunch. PAX has indie gamers attention. GDC is technical for programmers and graphics artists (not much talk about video game hype, its mostly technical subjects thats very dry, but very rarely talked about). And then the commercial guys like Nintendo have pretty much gone to direct marketing, such as Nintendo Directs. So there's not much left for E3 (which was always a gaming-news conference more so than anything else).
I rather spend that amount of money to a scholarship so someone who does have some sort of common sense make something out of themselves.... or create something for the betterment of mankind.
My days watching the tech industry go to hell in a hand basket are now over. I am that wealthy enough of a man to donate to those whom has a worthy cause.
Back in the late 90s and early 2000s it was a cool event because of how the tech was evolving.
The real reason is somewhere else entirely.
I guess shows like these make very little sense in a world that doesn't need journalusm. And E3 was primarily show for tech industry journalists to get their infirmation and then distribute it in their home areas. All this seems like a Pony Express world with coaches riding through high desert to get the newest information to you...