E3 2023 Canceled, After More Publishers Pulled Out

E3 2023 canceled?! We got all the details right here!

Not even a year after the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announced E3 would return E3 2023 has been canceled. This news was first broken by IGN after they received confirmation from two sources that the organization send out an email that the event would be canceled.

Soon after, ESA Global VP of Gaming Kyle Marsden-Kish made the following public announcement via ReedPop the events organizer:

“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.”

Soon after, the official E3 account then confirmed the cancellation of the event via Twitter.

Initially, the event was supposed to be held from June 13 to June 16 in the Los Angeles Convention Center. It would've been the first event after 2020's in-person event was canceled in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and 2022's event was canceled to focus on a “revitalized showcase”.

Why was E3 2023 canceled?

For anyone who's been keeping up with the situation, this comes as no surprise. Over the last few months, many of the big players in gaming have announced that they wouldn't attend the event.

Gaming giants Nintendo hasn't attended the event in years, focusing all their game announcements in a short and crisp video presentation. Over the years, the other big publishers like Sony and Microsoft started implementing similar presentations spread out over the year, instead of one big annual showcase.

During the pandemic, this kind of presentation has become the norm for all the big publishers. Instead of hourlong, awkward live presentations. We get to enjoy simple and clean footage of upcoming games and updates on recent happenings in the world of video games.

With social media being so accessible and internet speeds fast enough, it is no longer uncommon for developers to show off their games and drop short demos for players to download and check out.

And games now have considerably smaller hypercycles, so instead of getting an announcement and yearly updates on a game stuck in development. We now get some gameplay footage and a release date usually within a year of release.

There are also just way more games coming out all the time, so it is hard to focus on blockbuster titles during an event like E3 with a big release almost every other week. For consumers, it is way easier to keep track of upcoming releases with announcements and trailers every few months.

E3 is an odd spot compared to let's say Gamescom or the Tokyo Game Show. While all of them are trade shows at heart, the Los Angeles event has always been more consumer faced. Most of the big publishers have now probably realized that they could just cut out the middleman and reach their audience directly.

Gamescom and Tokyo Game Show have always been more industry-focused. While they also open their doors to consumers, the premise is rather show off upcoming products to others in the industry, and network while keeping it lite on the announcements.

The other elephant in the room is the Summer Games Fest and the Game Awards hosted by Geoff Keighley. The latter event has established itself in recent years as the place to be for big announcements while celebrating prominent members of the industry.

We'll keep you updated as the situation evolves here on ESTNN