E3 2023 Cancelled: Is E3 Finally Dead?

Published: Mar 31, 2023, 8:57 pm Updated: Mar 31, 2023, 10:44 pm

The news recently broke that E3 2023 isn't happening: the event has been canceled outright, following news that major game companies like Microsoft and Ubisoft wouldn't be attending the show anyways. E3's had more than a couple of rocky years in recent memory, especially throughout COVID. At this point, though, many are wondering if E3 is ever going to be a thing again. After all, so many companies choose to have their own events nowadays.

So, in this article, we'll tell you if E3 is finally dead.

What Happened to E3 2023?

Put simply, there wasn't enough interest in E3 or support from game companies to sustain the show this year.

The Entertainment Software Association, the folks who run E3, had the following to say about this year's event, "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."

E3, at its heart, is a trade show. Game companies come from all over the world to show off what they're working on and network. Without the game companies coming to the table, all you've got is an empty expo hall and thousands of angry attendees that feel ripped off.

Thus, E3 2023 has been canceled.

What Is E3? Do We Need It Anymore?

E3 started back in 1995. Decades ago by now in a totally different era where smartphones weren't even an idea in some young genius kid's mind. Back then, and for a long time, E3 made perfect sense.

Trade shows exist across industries, and they've existed forever. Getting a bunch of companies, and more importantly, a bunch of people, that do business in the same industry together to network and collaborate has always been a huge win for everyone.

And that's still true in 2023, of course, but a lot of other things have changed. The internet has connected the entire world together, and you don't really need to physically travel somewhere far away to meet with other developers, colleagues, etcetera. That can happen all the time, now.

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Beyond that, though, in the internet age, it's extraordinarily easy to host your own events. Rent out a place for a day nearly anywhere, set up a camera, and livestream your show to hundreds of thousands or even millions of folks at home, no middleman necessary.

In a lot of ways, a traditional convention like what E3 has always been is a relic of the past. It's not relevant in the way it once was, and even if it might be worth keeping around for purely cosmetic and nostalgic reasons, it's hard to imagine that in our current timeline anybody needs E3.

Is E3 Coming Back Next Year? What's the Future Look Like?

It's hard to predict the future, as you might already know, but if we had to guess, we'd say we'll see more E3s before they stop coming once and for all, but at the same time, don't expect E3 to ever reclaim its past prestige and glory. The reality there is that those days are long gone.

Sure, some events like The Game Awards can come and sort of replace E3, but they won't ever be as big and as packed with reveals and exclusives and crazy happenings for the time as E3 once did, years ago. Gaming has changed a lot since E3's heyday, and there's just no going back.

What does the future look like? Well, it probably looks a lot like every major game publisher or developer having their own yearly events where they reveal what they would have revealed, in the past, at a show like E3. What was once a single show will turn into a month or two of scheduled events.

We'll still get all the same reveals, and developers won't have any trouble collaborating and networking with each other, but the public is simply going to get much more of a drip of news and reveals rather than a concentrated explosion of them that come all at once.

But that isn't surprising, either. That's been the situation for some time now. The last number of E3 shows that did happen weren't especially spectacular. The actual show has become something much more along the lines of PAX. It's moreso aimed at fans as a place to go to celebrate video games and try out some cool stuff coming soon, not a place for big major reveals.