By Chad W. Shreeves
What used to be the biggest show in gaming has officially announced it is closing its doors for good. The giant (and sometimes controversial) summer convention announced this morning it was over.
The annual convention, hosted by the Entertainment Software Association, held its last convention in 2019 officially, with some all-digital events during the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Prior to that, it was once the biggest event every year for gaming news. Developers big and small would show up to announce and show off their newest titles to the world. It used to also be the home of some of the giant hardware reveals as well.
But its greatness was eventually overshadowed by the social media age. More and more developers realized it was easier (and much, much cheaper) to do their big announcements online and developers like Sony and Microsoft realized doing their own showcases outside of the expo got them more user engagement than during E3.
During its final few years it was clear studios and developers were not as interested. The reveals and announcements just didn’t hit as hard as they did in previous years. There are clear exceptions, but for the most part they really kept the big stuff for their own showcases. It also didn’t help that as “scooper” culture grew on platforms like Reddit and Twitter, the surprise was diminished because everything leaked out a week or so before the convention.
So now that the convention is over, what’s next for the gaming industry? Well for now the answer is pretty obvious. While Geoff Keighly has tried to make The Game Awards and Summer Games Fest an E3 competitor, neither event has quite hit the high points that E3 did at its peak.
It seems that the big revels, especially for big hardware announcements from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, are going to be reserved for the digital events from them. There’s a clear marketing strategy that goes into what gets shown and where and it seems that the big ones, the things most gamers are looking forward to, are going to be at the showcases.
But also, between Sony’s State of Play, Microsoft’s Xbox Showcase, and Nintendo’s Directs, as well as those third party ones, there’s more than enough time in the year for big announcements. So while the excitement and hype surrounding E3 is gone, we still have plenty to look forward to in 2024 and beyond.
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