The President of the Entertainment Software Association announced that the world famous game show E3 will return in 2023.
Inaugurated in 1995, Electronic Entertainment Expo aka E3 has long been the largest gaming event in the world. Taking place every year at the Los Angeles Convention Center, this expo is the place for new game announcements, with publishers large and small showcasing their latest products in turn. surname. Unfortunately, the organizers were forced to cancel E3 2020 due to the COVID-9 pandemic and the 2021 event took place online only.
Not only 2020 but E3 will not be held this 2022 anymore, and some gamers may have wondered if this annual event will disappear forever. However, E3’s parent organization, the Entertainment Software Association, has revealed that that won’t be the case. The head of the organization recently confirmed that E3 will return in 2023.
“We’re excited about E3’s return in 2023 offering both online and in-person events,” ESA president Stan Pierre-Louis said when he spoke to a Washington Post reporter. He went on to say that while the organization loves the online E3 event and it’s great for international fans, ESA is also eager to get back to in-person presentations. As such, he hopes 2023 will be the year of a successful E3 comeback and embodies fans’ desire for a return to live events.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Pierre-Louis, the head of the world’s largest gaming trade show, has a direct bias in favor of E3 2023. However, the community’s criticisms of the event have come as a result. 2021 may have played a role in E3’s return to the live organization. The organization has introduced controversial restrictions on who is allowed to live stream the event, and a social “find friend” feature that allows users to find attendees’ personal details has also been criticized. Equally.
There is also the question of whether E3 still has much of a place in the modern gaming industry. Even before COVID, E3 2019 had fewer visitors than in previous years, which is partly due to the absence of Sony and Activision. Before that, many AAA studios chose to hold separate showcases without participating in an official part of E3 anymore. 2020 also sees many transitions to online events like Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest and many publishers’ own shows. These digital events are both less expensive for developers and freeing games from having to compete for customers’ attention.
Even so, Pierre-Louis believes there’s still room for in-person E3 events, noting that the organization encourages companies of all sizes to experiment with how they capture consumer attention. Whether that makes participating in the E3 event a good deal for publishers is another question. It is still unclear which companies will attend E3 in 2023, and ESA is not ready to announce a date for E3 2023.
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