GRcade

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/video-games/2023/12/12/e3-permanently-canceled/

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, which was once the gaming industry's biggest convention and media platform, is officially dead.
"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 Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has decided to bring E3 to a close, said Stanley Pierre-Louis, president and CEO of the nonprofit trade association that represents the games industry's interests in the United States.

A mix of new competitors, partner withdrawals, changing audience habits and pandemic-era disruptions led to E3's collapse, ending years of attempts to resuscitate the event, which began in 1995.

"We know the entire industry, players and creators alike have a lot of passion for E3. We share that passion," Pierre-Louis said. "We know it's difficult to say goodbye to such a beloved event, but it's the right thing to do given the new opportunities our industry has to reach fans and partners."

I know it's not been about the last few years but to think this event will no longer ever return is quite sad was always 'Gaming Christmas' and had some great moments/reveals over the years. Summer Games Fest isn't the same, it's too spread out and not having everyone in one place loses something that made E3 what it was.

RIP to a real one. In the days of magazines seeing that E3 logo on the front cover evoked excitement like nothing else.

wow that is huge news. shame in many ways

It's DE3D.



Despite the popularity of moaning about how gooseberry fool it was, I still enjoyed E3 every year. Like Christmas for games announcements. A week of wall to wall hype.
I get why some didn't like it but it was iconic.

It's still missed.

It's sad, but I thought this announcement had already been made.

Ah shame I really enjoyed E3 as well. Not like these summer games fest / random online conferences malarkey.

Shutter's fill wrote:It's sad, but I thought this announcement had already been made.

I think that they had announced no show for this year, but said they were hoping to carry on from 2024.
But I think most people knew the writing was on the wall as soon as the pandemic hit. It's just taken a few years for the chicken to realise it's head was cut off.

I do miss the conferences in front of the live crowd and ensuing forum reactions. The rise of broadband (it's buffering!), video game websites and message boards throughout the mid 2000s onwards was great fun. Trouble was as attention grew and the more mainstream it got, they often had a tendency to do more harm than good. Sony's could go from one extreme (2006) to another (2013). Or later revealed as expensive works of almost complete fiction (Sony 2005, Microsoft 2009). The proliferation of social media has made them even more of a risky venture I'd wager. And I doubt they were cheap to put on.

Whereas these days GTA 6 has garnered something like 140 million views on YouTube and they didn't have to hire out an expensive theatre to do it.

Some great memories but no suprise at all that it's outlived its usefulness.

Ridge Racer!
Giant enemy crab...
Miyamoto with Link's sword and shield

Good times

E3 was the event for the gaming industry. I think the writing has been on the wall for some time, it has sadly been something of a shell of itself for several years now. I guess it was inevitable though. It's so much easier to market direct to consumers these days.

I will miss the excitement of 'who will win E3?' and the expectation for 3 years running of new console reveals and the absolutely wild rumours that these things used to create!

Nintendo's 2008 press conference went down in history for its toe curling awfulness.

Winckle wrote:RIP to a real one. In the days of magazines seeing that E3 logo on the front cover evoked excitement like nothing else.

Glory days.

Vermi Claus wrote:Nintendo's 2008 press conference went down in history for its toe curling awfulness.

Was that the Wii Music one?

Such a shame they could never recover from COVID and fuckups. Now we just have the deluge of boring developer directs to ‘look forward to’

Tomous wrote:

Vermi Claus wrote:Nintendo's 2008 press conference went down in history for its toe curling awfulness.

Was that the Wii Music one?

Yep.

Captain Kinopio wrote:Such a shame they could never recover from COVID and fuckups. Now we just have the deluge of boring developer directs to ‘look forward to’

This.

As gooseberry fool as E3 could be, there's nothing else that comes close to it.

I'll miss the moments like this:

Peggle 2!

End of an era, but probably a necessary one. That big expos like this survived this long into the internet age is impressive by itself.