E3 as We Know It Is Cancelled
A new strain of the Coronavirus, codenamed COVID-19, is enveloping much of the world before it can figure out specifically how to fight it, something you already knew unless you live in a cave. (But you should probably stay in there if you do.) It’s been compared to the flu, but there are big differences. It’s not as easily spreadable, but it’s far more fatal, especially for the elderly, and there’s no vaccine. It’s why nearly all events and public gatherings around the world have been cancelled, and video game-related events have been no exception. The biggest in the gaming world was the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) originally planned for next week, but gaming panels were planned for SXSW, which was also cancelled.
GDC is now no longer the biggest gaming event among them, because it’s now been confirmed that the de facto biggest of them all won’t be happening this year: E3 2020. Word of this first started leaking last night, when extremely snarky publisher Devolver Digital tweeted that potential E3 attendees should cancel their flights to Los Angeles and hotel bookings. They’ve made somewhat-true jokes before (good ones, at that), but it was clear they weren’t kidding about this. Their tweet opened the floodgates to reliable insiders claiming their sources parroted the same info about E3 2020’s cancellation. It now joins the many upon many events that have been cancelled recently, because this virus spread will get worse before it gets better.
The reasons why E3 had to be cancelled this year were understandable, as detailed above. But this will hurt for the Entertainment Software Association, the event’s organizer, because E3 2020 was going to be a critical moment for them. A new kind of E3 was set to debut this year, one less focused on gaming companies and their announcements and garnered more towards fans and streaming celebrities. This might have made it more in common with PAX, though with bigger announcements and within a larger venue. Microsoft and Nintendo were still going to be there, after all. They’ll now have to put that on hold until a later time — perhaps until June 2021.
E3 2020 was also planned to be important for Microsoft, where they would have further detailed the Xbox Series X next-generation console planned for launch this year. They first revealed it at The Game Awards in December last year, and have provided bits of information since. But this would have marked a key opportunity to display more software, further detail the hardware choices, and perhaps provide a price and release date. They’ll still be able to do that, but not on as big a stage.
One key company is , of course, being left out there. I previously said that “The E3 Gamers Loved Is Dead and Buried” when I posted about Sony Interactive Entertainment pulling out of the event for the second year in a row in mid-January. As it turns out, they were just ahead of the curve. They decided to forego attending E3 2020 to host their own show, since they have the next-generation PlayStation 5 console coming this year. Whether even that show will happen is another question. It’s time to consider whether next-generation consoles will make their intended fall 2020 timeframe, since many of them are manufactured in the country COVID-19 originated from.
I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that E3 as we know it is cancelled simply due to the event mostly not happening this year. Kotaku’s Jason Schreier made a good point when he said that companies may not return after this. Many of them will hold their own digital events in the summer to make up for this, to announce and stream upcoming games right from their own offices. It would also be nice if they provided demos of games right to the player base. This could be a much cheaper alternative to making deals with the ESA to establish show floor space at the Los Angeles Convention Center every year, and they might stick with this if they reach anywhere near as large of an audience. If this happens, E3 will truly never be the same again.
Needless to say, there’s a good reason why the ESA hopes to “coordinate an online experience to showcase industry announcements and news in June 2020.” We’ll see how many companies will sign up for that, though Warner Bros. Games could join in given how, as Kotaku reported, they planned to hold their first-ever E3 conference this year. Microsoft, however, indicated that their own digital event will be separate from what the ESA has planned — no surprise given that E3 conferences have never officially been part of E3. Ubisoft also has a digital event planned, though details of it will be confirmed in the near future.
The year 2020 was bound to be a rough one all around, indicated by how it started. But even then, it was tough to think that COVID-19 would lead to Cancel Culture taking an entire year down with it. We’ll have to wait until next year to see if the ESA’s new ideas for E3 work out, assuming the venue will still be large.
About The Author
Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
