One of the developers of Postal 4, Mike Jaret, opens up about his views on E3's future, and they are not very bright. According to Jaret, he predicts that the gaming event will not resume in 2021, and that a combination of issues, including the coronavirus, have caused the downfall of the event.
Jaret is well known for his work on Postal 4 and previous Postal games, which have all been incredibly controversial. Despite this controversy, Postal 4 has been seeing incredible success in its early access, which is one of many factors that led to Jaret speaking with the Duel Screens podcast on the issue of E3.
E3 has been around since 1995, around 25 years, but it has undergone some drastic changes throughout its lifespan. Though many liked the direction E3 was going, others felt as though the convention was having something of an identity crisis, and may have already been on its way out.
E3, or the Electronic Entertainment Expo, was initially an industry insider event, meaning that everyone in attendance had to show proof that they were somehow related to the game industry, be it as a developer, publisher, or news reporter. All of that changed, however, in 2017, when the event became open to the public for the first time. The following two years saw an expansion of this model, with more and more consumers coming to the expo, and while those consumers were thrilled, some developers had expressed disdain for the new direction the expo was taking.
Perhaps the most influential company to take a step back from E3 was Sony, which was shockingly absent from 2019's expo. Last year, Sony stated that the quick spread of information facilitated by the internet makes an expo like E3 not ideal because of how late into the year it is, and instead offered fans other ways to learn info from the video game giant.
This year, however, even before E3 was canceled, Sony condemned E3, saying that the event's current direction did not meet Sony's goals for an expo. Other long time attendees had also publically opted to pass on E3 2020, and after its cancellation, the future is uncertain. It was even recently announced that Microsoft is switching to all digital events through July 2021.
All that said, Jaret is simply speculating, and reminds listeners that he is relatively cut off from the rest of the game development world. It has been officially announced that there are still plans for hosting E3 2021 next year so if it does die out, it likely won't be for another year or two.
Postal 4Â is available now for early access on PC.
Source: Duel Screens Podcast