E3 2022 is Officially Canceled

The Entertainment Software Association announced yesterday that there will be no E3 2022, even in digital form. The organization previously announced in January that the annual trade show would not be held in person this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, though the ESA didn’t explicitly confirm at the time that a digital event could still happen.  

E3 2020 was canceled two years ago due to the pandemic, but the event did come back last year as a virtual event. If there will be no E3 at all this year, the ESA promised that the annual trade show will come back to Los Angeles in 2023 as a physical and digital event. 

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“We will devote all our energy and resources to delivering a revitalized physical and digital E3 experience next summer. Whether enjoyed from the show floor or your favorite devices, the 2023 showcase will bring the community, media, and industry back together in an all-new format and interactive experience,” the ESA said in a statement. 

In recent years, E3 has become less and less relevant after big publishers such as Sony and EA decided to pull out and launch their own game showcases. E3 has also been suffering from the competition with the Summer Game Fest, a series of digital video game events from various publishers held throughout the summer. The organizers didn’t waste any time yesterday by announcing right after the E3 2022 cancellation news that Summer Game Fest would come back in June 2022.

If the ESA did pull the plug completely on E3 2022, it’s worth noting that gamescom 2022 will come back to Cologne this summer on August 24-28, and it will be followed by the physical Tokyo Game Show on September 15-18. The COVID-19 pandemic hit the trade show industry pretty hard in the past two years, but things are slowly coming back to normal. E3 used to be the biggest event in the video game industry every year, and it will be interesting to see how the ESA can deliver a reinvigorated E3 showcase next year.

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Conversation 3 comments

  • dftf

    01 April, 2022 - 5:12 am

    <p>Given all the leaks you see now, is <em>E3</em> really as exciting as it used to be?</p><p><br></p><p>Plus, it used to be that at <em>E3</em> you would often see interesting alpha or beta versions of games — but nowadays, many games <em>launch</em> in a beta state, and rely on massive day-one and post-launch patches to fix the damn thing!</p>

    • will

      Premium Member
      01 April, 2022 - 7:28 am

      <p>I would add that in years past you would see a game that would launch soon or later in the year/6 months. Then it had become games launching in a year or longer out. </p>

  • j5

    Premium Member
    01 April, 2022 - 9:00 am

    <p>Yeah I think the modern day age of the internet, social media, fast internet speed to delivery steaming video, YOUTUBE, companies can deliver articles, and videos straight to their customers smartphones, all of this stuff killed E3. Companies can save tons of money by skipping E3 and it doesn’t even hurt their PR to skip it anymore. My teens don’t even know what E3 is and they’re avid XBOX players, they get their video game news from YouTubers they follow.</p>

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