It’s really hard not to have some degree of reverence for E3. For those who grew up with games being streamed and broadcast, it was the big show. It was the place where the biggest reveals of the year happened. And now, it is dead.
That’s dramatic, I know. But in all seriousness, the ESA has officially declared E3 done. After more than two decades, the show will cease to exist, following several canceled or online-only years, and a broken partnership with PAX organizer ReedPop. (Disclosure: I used to work under ReedPop, at the now-shuttered USgamer.)
Frankly, this was the death knell we all knew would toll. It’s easy to point at the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the problem, and it was. But speaking as someone who attended E3 2019, the decline was already visible.
For context, I only attended three E3 events: in 2015, 2016, and 2019. Each year felt drastically different in their own ways, though the gap between ’16 and ’19 was noticeable. A lot more was being sold on the show floor, for one thing, reflecting the increasingly consumer-focused lean for an otherwise industry event.
This is normally the part where some might celebrate the collapse of what wasn wasn’t working, and laud whatever comes next. Out with the old, in with the new. But in the wake of this confirmation, I’m left wondering what we’ve left behind, and what any road ahead looks like.
E3 was, for many years, that one show everyone had on their mind. It was where the biggest reveals would happen. New games, like Final Fantasy VII Remake and Halo 2, would debut. Heck, this was where the actual consoles were fully detailed and shown for the first time. I’m sure for the developers of these games, it felt like the culmination of a lot of hard days’ work, putting these massive reveals together and finally showing them off.
There’s some wild history that crops up, just through conferences alone. Sony would make waves with its price point for the first PlayStation in 1995, then again with its PlayStation 4 presentation in 2013. Maybe it’s because these moments took place on a stage, with big screens, lights, music, and pageantry, that they feel like grander gestures than a price point reveal normally should.
Of course, it’s not just about the fuel for console wars and conference comparisons. It was also about taking that same stage, that same place that would connotate prestige and reverence, and seeing the absolutely wildest shit happen.
The Wii Music presentation. The “bam, there it is” Kinect showcase. Really, every single waking, bonkers moment of Konami’s E3 2010 press conference. At its greatest heights, E3 could feel like a magnificent show; at its lowest, like watching a bad improv show.
