Dead And Buried: Why E3 Has Been Left Behind | Column From The Editor

E3 was once big. Really big. This was the Black Friday of video game related announcements. Companies far and large reserved their biggest news, hits and likewise for this one convention out of the year.

E3’s roots date back to the mid 90s, where the convention began to get held yearly out of Los Angeles. Since then, it has played host to a series of iconic moments in video gaming. There was perhaps the most surprising E3 in 2015, when the eventual release of the Final Fantasy VII remake would get announced. Konami left its mark on gaming and E3 history in 2010 with one of the most iconic shoot-for-the-fences type failures ever. Put simply, E3 had, for a time, become almost synonymous with the concept of gaming itself.

Nowadays, a lot of credit for the demise of E3 goes to COVID-19. Up until 2020, E3 had been consistently held in person. With the pandemic looming, the event had to be hosted entirely virtually. Viewership underwent a steep decline from 2020 to the subsequent two years. Then, E3 was suspended and eventually cancelled, multiple times. At this point, it seems unlikely that E3 will make another appearance.

But why did E3 die? After all, plenty of other forms of entertainment were able to survive, some even thrive through the pandemic. The pandemic was a particularly good time to give people a reason to look at a screen. Let’s assess what happened with E3.

Others found a way

XBox came up with the Developer Direct. PlayStation has the PlayStation Showcase. Most famously, Nintendo has their yearly “Nintendo Direct.” These titans of the industry are already announcing and revealing all sorts of exciting, new upcoming content. So why would they need E3? Think about it, why spend time and resources coming together with a competitor when you can conduct the train and do it all on your own? This has been the real silent but deadly E3 killer, and is why the event struggled so mightily to recapture its audience.

It no longer fills a niche

E3 originated in 1995. In 1995, there wasn’t Facebook, Twitter (or X), Instagram or any form of online news source. E3 actually was the best, most cutting edge way for gamers to get their news. Flash forward almost thirty years later, and it seems that even niche, select products have “leaks” or dedicated PR teams to speak for themselves. Combine this with the aforementioned issue of companies starting their own events, and you realize that E3 is more of a niche, novel event than anything actually worth considering a ‘must-see.’ You aren’t going to miss any news from missing out on E3, because either there’s nothing much to tell, or if needed, you could just check out the highlights off some social media source and have that be that. When it stopped being fun and exciting off novelty alone, viewer numbers started to tank. When the event was outright cancelled in 2020, it may as well have appeared in the obituaries the next day.

The gaming environment around it

Long gone are the days where people will appear in droves for a midnight release of some sort. The digital market has presented what will eventually be an insurmountable challenge for retailers worldwide such as Gamestop. Why would I get out of my pajamas, jump in the car and drive somewhere to get a game, when I could just hit a few buttons and have it essentially sent right to my console? This logic extends to E3, and this is where its olden day roots begin to really show. Referencing what was said in our first topic, why would I bother watching E3 if I’m a Nintendo fan, when I’ve already got a six month roadmap ahead of what Nintendo plans to do?

The lost art of gaming events happening in person is a large part of what hurt E3.

Ultimately, E3 is more than likely done and dusted. It produced many iconic, memorable moments across gaming and will go down as a legend in the niche. It ultimately failed to adapt to the times nor did it capably respond to its competitors. Thankfully, the digital fingerprint of E3 will likely live on forever as an influencer of how other companies would go on to handle their own development cycles. More information is never a bad thing, and we have E3 to thank for inspiring the Nintendo Direct, PlayStation Showcase or Developer Direct.