The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) might have already canceled the 2024 and 2025 editions of E3, some newly surfaced public records suggest. This development further underlines the nowadays widespread belief that E3 might never recover from its 2023 cancellation.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo lost some of its glamor over the past decade as an increasing number of major publishers began focusing on doing their own events instead of sharing the news cycle spotlight with their rivals. And while that trend didn't necessarily threaten the very existence of the show, E3 looked to be on the ropes since the advent of the COVID-19 epidemic, which was cited as the main reason for the cancelations of E3 2020 and 2022. The pandemic also prompted the organizers to try an online-only format for E3 2021, which received a lukewarm response from consumers and exhibitors alike.
The latest attempt at the show resulted in its most troubling abandonment to date, as E3 2023 was canceled in late March due to an overall lack of interest from publishers. And while its organizers said they are not necessarily giving up on the event, it would now appear that they have already decided to scratch the next two iterations of E3. Namely, a convention sales brief from a June 21 meeting of the Los Angeles City Tourism Board of Commissioners outright states that E3 2024 and 2025 have been canceled, as first spotted by ResetEra user Rosti.
This disclosure doesn't rule out another near-future attempt at a virtual E3 because the local government is ostensibly only in the loop about the show's physical presence due to its venue of choice being the publicly-owned Los Angeles Convention Center. Nevertheless, the fact that ESA has apparently already dropped the idea of even so much as attempting another traditional E3 in the coming years doesn't bode well for the future of the show and its steadily declining reputation.
Looking at the bigger picture, Summer Game Fest has already managed to fill the role of the go-to mid-year event for major game announcements ever since E3 encountered its first pandemic-induced troubles in 2020. The newly concluded 2023 edition of Summer Game Fest received some harsh criticism for its lack of representation, but has not disappointed in terms of game reveals, which were varied and plentiful. With the 2024 SGF already being confirmed and in light of these newly unearthed cancelation evidence, E3's road to recovery is looking longer and more insurmountable by the day.
Source: ResetEra