The show "did not garner the sustained interest necessary"

By Rebekah Valentine
Updated: Mar 30, 2023 8:45 pm
Posted: Mar 30, 2023 8:27 pm

Almost a year after announcing its return, the Entertainment Software Association announced today to its members that this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), has been canceled, IGN can confirm.

Two sources have confirmed to IGN that the organization announced the cancellation via an email sent out to its members today. The email said that while E3 "remains a beloved event and brand" that the 2023 version "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 ESA concludes the email by reiterating its commitment to advocacy work. It does not mention undertaking the show again in future years.

Following IGN's report, the ESA issued the following public statement from Kyle Marsden-Kish, Global VP of Gaming, ReedPop:

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.

The press release adds that ReedPop and the ESA will continue to work together on "future E3 events."

The event was supposed to be held from June 13th through June 16th at the Los Angeles Convention Center and would have been the first in-person E3 event since 2019. The event was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and while a digital version was held in 2021, the event was canceled again in 2022 in an effort to focus on a "revitalized showcase" that would set a new standard for hybrid industry events.

E3's return for this year was announced last June alongside the confirmation that E3 2022 had been canceled. The news comes as multiple big names in the industry, from Xbox, Nintendo, PlayStation, and more recently, Ubisoft announced that it would not be attending E3 in any capacity, with most opting to host its own digital showcases.

IGN has reached out to the ESA and ReedPOP for comment.


https://www.ign.com/articles/e3-has-been-canceled

CDI-Zelda approves.

This is the PR-speak way of saying:

"We couldn't fool enough suckers into totally wasting hundreds of their dollars on a ticket to our crappy show, so therefore we are canceling the show since the numbers aren't high enough to satisfy our grifting needs."

Side note: IGN is and always has been one the most useless, most shilly-iest gaming websites ever, and no one should ever patronize them for any reason.

And nothing of value has been lost.
Good riddance.

Demons was it?

I don't think they are referring to gamers, I think that's more about the lack of interest from the industry.

"The news comes as multiple big names in the industry, from Xbox, Nintendo, PlayStation, and more recently, Ubisoft announced that it would not be attending E3 in any capacity, with most opting to host its own digital showcases."

If there's something to be seen, then there's somebody to see it.
But if there's nothing to see, very few people would like to buy any tickets then.

When will the wokes stop cancelling everything? /s

This was inevitable after 2020 and everyone ended up doing their own shows anyway.

Yeah, this is kind of like the decline of television. There are not these single mass shows anymore that can reach everyone. People's attention is too divided among million separate online options. So things like this are not worth it anymore.

Wow. Funny, I was just listening to Jeff Gerstmann's podcast today with Dave Lang, and they speculated about this.

It was expected. Many publishers have faced with difficulties and cut their costs now. Giants are born and die.

That's not all they do, there's also plenty of corporate shilling too.

I theorized that E3 could shift to serving the indie market. Although the revenue is smaller, they would still be a huge platform that would allow indie developers to show off their games to a big crowd since E3 had the name value. Given the price, it would give a platform to small developers who are confident and want to show off their games to the public since the big dogs are doing their own thing.

Guess E3 was focused on the money.

E3 has been dead since 2010, why is this a surprise.

E3's been dying a slow death even before the pandemic hit. It's outlived its usefulness long ago.

It's a shame, it was huge before.

But yeah there has been a slow decline, and the covid restrictions might well have hastened its demise.

As Tokyo Bunny said, would be nice if they could pivot to showcasing indie games, go back to the roots of gaming - but I guess they weren't ready for it this year.