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E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo that has been going on for 25 years has been canceled for 2020. The news is official, it’s not happening. Now this raises a lot of questions. E3 has been the hallmark event for the gaming industry for nearly as long as the gaming industry has been mainstream.
E3 started out as a trade show aimed specifically at retailers but has evolved into a big time marketing platform for video game creators. Major game companies have used the event to reveal their consoles, new games, and devices to the gaming masses. Now with E3 on the back burner what does it mean for the industry as a whole?
Here are some burning questions about the future of E3 and how the video game industry will move forward with or without it.
What will companies do this Year instead of E3?
E3 has been the one time a year where a major game company was guranteed to get eyeballs and media coverage on the new products they presented. That said, in recent years, E3 has been losing some of its prestige.
Brands like PlayStation, and EA Games have already opted out of E3 well before the coronavirus threat that has canceled the event this year. Others thought it wise to skip the event too including Video Game Awards host Geoff Keighley
While some have already left E3 behind, other huge brands were still banking on the expo to share their big ideas and show off their products. These companies spend thousands of dollars on creating presentations and press conferences to entertain and inform consumers.
E3 planning takes shape over months leading up to the event and now that it has been canceled just several weeks before showtime, these companies will have to pivot, so what will they do?
Microsoft has already come out and said that they are preparing a digital show take the place of their major E3 press conference.
A digital event seems like the most obvious route to go. That’s where Nintendo has gone for the last several years via their Nintendo Directs and it has worked out very well for them. Sony has also started doing their own digital events for the PlayStation brand and they seem to deliver the message they want to get out to their consumers as well.
Maybe they can do something interesting. Maybe they can push out demos to Xbox players at home through their services like Xbox Game Pass. Maybe they will have some event where media and fans can come in and still take in a press conference?
Will other major game companies do the same? Ubisoft, Bethesda, Square Enix have all had press conferences at E3 in the past, will they produce their own digital events now? Will they try to piggyback off of other bigger digital events such as Micrososofts or Nintendo’s? Time will tell.
What of the smaller companies? An assortment of developers, publishers, and other companies come to E3 to show off their products to the media roaming the show floor. It’s the one area where they can get people’s hands physically on their products.
The potential coverage they can get from media outlets who try out their products and leave their impressions is massive. What are these smaller companies going to do? I doubt most of them will get the same traction putting on their own little digital events. Will they turn to live streams? Gaming influencers? Other expos and trade shows?
Seeing how everyone responds to E3’s absence in this area will be interesting. The bigger companies will be able to get their message out there one way or another but the smaller teams, they may have to get creative.
Will major Game Companies even want to come back to E3?
This is one of them more interesting questions concerning the cancelation of E3 2020. We have seen some big companies like Sony, Nintendo, and EA decide that they don’t need E3 to get their message out there. In fact some of these companies feel like they can communicate their messages better without E3.
When Microsoft and others decide to do their own thing this year and if the results of these digital events and self created promotional events give them similar or better marketing metrics than they anticipated with E3, does that spell doom for the future of the expo?
This is a legitimate threat to the future of E3. Many were already feeling that E3 was losing relevance, that it was behind the times and the Entertainment Software Association that runs E3 are out of touch.
For these major companies, putting together their own conferences and digital events may be a lot cheaper and more convenient than dealing with the ESA’s constraints and costs. There will be no time limits, they don’t have to coordinate with other conferences or scheduled events. Most of all, they can put on their events during a time where they will dominate all of the media chatter.
Maybe these companies really enjoy the benefits of the new format they use this year and decide there is no reason to return for E3 2021, that could be a death kneel to E3 which relies heavily on the major companies bringing their A games and all the media and consumer attention that brings to the expo.
E3 has been THE event in gaming every year, the one place everyone tuned into to get the latest news and see what the near future was going to look like. That time could be over after this summer.
Could the ESA use this as an oppurtunity to improve E3
“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger–but recognize the opportunity.”
― John F. Kennedy
For E3 and the ESA on the surface this looks like a disaster, if they are wise however, this could be a really big opportunity. I don’t think it’s a question anymore that E3 needs to evolve. Big brands and companies have been deciding to skip the event in recent years and for multiple reasons, it seems as if the giant gaming expo has lost a lot of the momentum it once had.
E3 is a huge event that takes months to plan. After one event is over it’s probably not long after that initial planning begins for the next one. That can make it hard to implement sweeping changes. With the expo being canceled this year, the ESA has some extra time to reassess.
They should pay close attention to what companies do this year in their absence. See what works and doesn’t work for these companies and try to fill in the gaps where they can.
See what it is that has driven some companies away from their event and what they can do to make them want to come back into the fold. It may mean drastically changing how E3 works, it may mean less of an emphasis on press conferences happening live on big stages but more hands on oppurtunites for media and conusmers.
I don’t know what the answers and neither does the ESA at this time, this year off gives them a chance to listen, plan, and start to implement changes that may be bring the show back in a form that is more relevant and useful to today’s industry.
How will the Gaming Community Feel about the absence?
For a lot of gamers, myself included, E3 is a pretty magical time. It’s kind of like Christmas in the gaming industry for hardcore fans. It’s when we get the latest peak of our most anticipated games. It’s where juicey new reveals happen en masse.
The build up right before E3 with all the included speculation and rumor flying, is one of the funner times to be a gamer each year. That entire aspect will be missed.
Another area that will take a huge hit is all the gamers and media that attended the yearly event. It’s a place where you can see other people in the community that you don’t get to see often, face to face. Sometimes the expo is the only place where you get to physically interact with some of your friends.
The expo is always a ridiculously busy time, there isn’t a lot of room for hobnobbing particularly for media types but it is still something that is part of the charm of E3. You also lose something by not having as much media physically be there in person to cover your products.
Sure some of the digital events could incorporate a fan aspect. Maybe some people will still get to experience hands on time with games and hang out with community members but surely it won’t be on the same scale as a full blown E3. For the people that do like to attend every year, the human interaction and physicality factor may be missed.
The timing of everything raises interesting questions too. One advantage and disadvantage of Electronic Entertainment Expo is that you get a boatload of information dumped in the span of a few days. Hours upon hours of game news is disseminated and analyzed for that entire week and days after.
Now things may be spread out a lot more. When will these digital events happen? Will Sony do something in April while Microsoft decides to have their event in June? Will smaller companies try to put on some kind of collaborative show? Will they team up with the major platform holders shows?
The exciting thing is that maybe this means there will be more game news spread out over the spring and summer months as opposed to everyone hoarding information for E3 and then letting everything spill in June leaving the next couple of months rather sparse on the game news front.
E3 Plans to be back in 2021
The Electronic Entertainment Expo still plans to go on next year. Whether or not their audience and the gaming companies associated with them will be there remains to be seen. This is going to be a very interesting transition year for the ESA and gaming industry.
What happens in the following months can shape how the gaming media narrative works from 2020 onward. No matter how you look at it, it seems like change is inevitable. E3 will not be the same, the way press conferences are done will not be the same. Something will give.
Lessons will be learned in this off period, companies will figure some things out and decide what to keep and toss in their marketing strategy in the future. This years expo is all the more interesting because we are on the verge of a new generation of gaming consoles.
The 2020 show is supposed to be a big hitter, where next gen software and hardware is revealed, shown off, and discussed. This year we won’t have that happen. It’s up to Microsoft and Sony to bring that information to consumers directly.
How will they do it? Will it be better than the typical press conference reveal? Worse? I can’t answer any of that right but I can tell you we will all have an interesting time finding out together.
What do you think of E3 being canceled this year? Do you think it will come back? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts!
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