Despite reports and rumors claiming E3 had been cancelled for 2024 and 2025, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has said no decision has been made.
Yesterday, a post on the forum ResetEra started circulating, sharing an update from the Lost Angeles Tourism Board of Commissioners that projected sales results based on cancellations of E3.
GamesIndustry.biz reached out to the ESA after reports, and a spokesperson responded by saying the organization is “currently having conversations about E3 2024 (and beyond),” and “no final decisions about the event have been made at this time.”
This cancellation didn’t come as a huge surprise, at the time, because of E3 2023’s unceremonious cancellation this March, just two months before it was set to take place. E3 had already been cancelled in 2020, 2021, and 2022, all because of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz after the cancellation ESA President Stanley Pierre-Louis said “We’re committed to providing an industry platform for marketing and convening but we want to make sure we find that right balance that meets the needs of the industry. We’re certainly going to be listening and ensuring whatever we want to offer meets those needs and at that time, we will have more news to share.”
For 2023, the cancellation was largely attributed to COVID once again, and the impact it had on game development at large, making companies more reluctant to invest in large-scale marketing events.
In place of E3, Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest filled the role of summer event, along with individual showcases from publishers including Xbox, Ubisoft, and Capcom. Summer Game Fest is already confirmed for 2024.
Keighley himself blamed E3’s death on itself rather than competition with Summer Game Fest, saying “I think E3 sort of killed itself in a way. I understand why people say [I killed E3], but I think if anything, we created Summer Game Fest, and I built Summer Game Fest because I saw the wheels falling off the wagon of E3.”
While E3 has, traditionally, taken place in Los Angeles, there’s always a chance the show could be moved somewhere else. In 1997 and 1998 the show took place in Atlanta, Georgia due to being unable to secure the Los Angeles Convention Center. Then in 2007, the show moves to Santa Monica, California for one year.
