E3 2023 Cancelled Due To Lack Of Interest
Hope any of you reading this didn’t already buy your tickets to this year’s E3 — it’s not happening. The Entertainment Software Association confirmed this afternoon that there will be no E3 in 2023. Those who were surprised by this probably haven’t been paying attention.
Though E3 was in decline prior to COVID, it’s had a very difficult time since the pandemic attracting big video game companies. Nether Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft have had a booth there in several years. In the last few weeks just about every other major player in the business announced their withdrawal, from Ubisoft to Sega. Unless the ESA wanted to make this year’s E3 an entirely indie presentation (and that would’ve been fine with us!) they had little choice but to abandon the whole idea.
“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,” says Kyle Marsden-Kish, Global VP of Gaming at ReedPop, the current organizers of 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.”
It’s worth noting there was no E3 in 2022 either, but that was a voluntary delay from the ESA itself to retool the expo into a “revitalized showcase” that would be half-physical, half-digital. Apparently this new and improved version of E3 wasn’t enough to entice anybody. The last time a traditional E3 was held was in 2019. As for the prospect of there being any in the future, even though all signs point to “no,” E3 has been dead before. ReedPop is promising “future E3 events.”
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