After a more than tumultuous ride over the last number of years, the E3 gaming conference has been officially shuttered. The folks behind the annual gaming extravaganza have been struggling to reinstate the show for several years now, but after major partners started to side step the summertime showcase, COVID taking hold of physical events everywhere, and a number of other factors, sadly, the governing body behind the event have finally decided to call it quits.
Annual E3 gaming show now officially no more
Stanley Pierre-Louis, the president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), did an interview with the Washington Post recently confirming the official shut down of the annual gaming event.
Pierre said that “after more than two decades of hosting an event that has served as a central showcase for the U.S. and global video game industry,” the ESA is shuttering the event for good.
After COVID forced the ESA to cancel the 2020 event and return the following year for a less exciting all-digital show, E3 was then cancelled once again in 2022. And then earlier this year, when the ESA also decided to skip 2023 alongside 2024 and 2025, a permanent shut down of the event seemed all but imminent.
Despite reporting suggesting the folks behind E3 were indeed hard at work at some kind of reinvented iteration of the annual gaming show, it appears as though those effortless were fruitless, leading to today’s official announcement.
It was an exciting show just about every year. There was just something about all the major players coming together to host live events head-to-head, akin to the classic Apple keynotes, to show off the latest and greatest on their respective platforms. While these days the major publishers have opted for mostly pre-recorded showcase events, typically occurring in and around the summer months when E3 used to take place, they just don’t seem to have the same hype and excitement behind them as E3 always did for me.
The now annual Summer Game Fest and Game Awards does fill that live void to some degree, but it’s just not quite the same as all of the biggest announcements of the year culminating at one time and in one place.
Let’s all have a moment of silence for E3.
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