E3 2023 Officially Canceled

[Fouquin]

Following the exodus of many high profile companies within the gaming and entertainment industries, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has announced the cancellation of E3 2023. The event was to be held on June 13th through the 16th at the Los Angeles Convention Center, and would have been the first in-person E3 in 4 years, the last in-person event having been in 2019. In an email sent out to members the ESA stated that E3, "remains a beloved event and brand," but that the 2023 event, "simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary to execute it in a way that would showcase the size, strength, and impact of our industry." The email ends with no mention of the event's future.

ESA has issued an official public statement from Kyle Marsden-Kish, Global VP of Gaming, on the cancellation:

This was a difficult decision because of all the effort we and our partners put toward making this event happen, but we had to do what's right for the industry and what's right for E3. We appreciate and understand that interested companies wouldn't have playable demos ready and that resourcing challenges made being at E3 this summer an obstacle they couldn't overcome. For those who did commit to E3 2023, we're sorry we can't put on the showcase you deserve and that you've come to expect from ReedPop's event experiences.

In the public statement ReedPop and the ESA assures that they will continue to work together on future E3 events. With the last two years of cancellations, and uncertainty surrounding the event drawing in the headlining industry partners who have independently chosen to host their own online or hybrid events, it remains unclear as to what a future E3 would look like.

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[natr0n]

This show was awesome back in the day with gaming magazines showing what are classics now.

 

[Space Lynx]

even before covid shut it down I honestly never watched it. it was awesome as hell back in the day, but last 7 to 10 years or so it has been pretty boring and lackluster.

good riddance I say. short term greed has destroyed the industry, just like short term greed is destroying everything in our societies. if it wasn't for indie devs, I would have given up on gaming a long time ago.

 

[Icon Charlie]

Entertainment Software Association is nothing more than glass house to appease the US government during the early days of video gaming.

It has done absolutely nothing for the customer base. And E3 has been a joke for too many years.

Nothing of value now has been lost.

The same goes with the Games Developer's Conference. Nothing but a marketing circle jerk now as well.

You can also say that with GAMA as well

I used to pay to get into those site (up to 5 grand per year for week/weekends/vip on those sites) and at one time you used to get good information about the tech and upcoming products. But like anything of today, greed took over and what you see in the Gaming/Tech industry is what you are seeing in the computer desktop industry right now.

Overall, it's pretty damned bad.

 

[dragontamer5788]

The same goes with the Games Developer's Conference. Nothing but a marketing circle jerk now as well.

What?

GDC is a tradeshow with expert programmers sharing the latest-and-greatest shader optimizations, C++ programming topics, and so forth. They're making good presentations every year.

 

[Fahad]

Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo showcase new games at The Game Awards and Summer Game Fest but pull out of E3? This is either political or as they said, is simply due to companies not being ready to show off new games in June.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo showcase new games at The Game Awards and Summer Game Fest but pull out of E3? This is either political or as they said, is simply due to companies not being ready to show off new games in June.

Political?

Bruh it's e3, not the primaries. The harsh reality is that E3's influence has no purpose in a world where leaks are a near daily occurrence and any company can easily hold a virtual press conference and take advantage of social media buzz to push their product with just as much effort and arguably more success. Presenting to a group of game "journalists" who can barely play games (remember cuphead?) and hardly impress in the writing sphere either just isnt worth the time or energy.

Kinda like the grammys, what was once a celebration of the art has turned into a total joke that nobody watches anymore, in a world where your average youtube critic does a better job of sifting through trash then all the professional media combined.

 

[R-T-B]

Maybe a new pan/plan-demic is coming.

It's always coming because humans are always vulnerable (and no it's not planned) but that has nothing to do with this cancellation at all.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

What?

GDC is a tradeshow with expert programmers sharing the latest-and-greatest shader optimizations, C++ programming topics, and so forth. They're making good presentations every year.

If the game industry is any indication those "latest and greatest" pieces of code by these "experts" barely function, given how often lone modders can fix games better then the devs can.

 

[dragontamer5788]

If the game industry is any indication those "latest and greatest" pieces of code by these "experts" barely function, given how often lone modders can fix games better then the devs can.

?? A lot of the GDC talks are publicly available. You can see the quality of them yourself.

https://gpuopen.com/gdc-presentations/2022/GDC_Breaking_Down_The_World_Of_Athia.pdf

Etc. etc. Its good stuff. I suggest that intermediate shader programmers and optimizers really pay attention to the talks at GDC. None of these discussions are easy, modern video games requires a lot of linear algebra, graphics know-how, hardware knowledge and more.

I honestly don't know of any better conferences than GDC on this subject. But if you're aware of any, please let me know.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

?? A lot of the GDC talks are publicly available. You can see the quality of them yourself.

https://gpuopen.com/gdc-presentations/2022/GDC_Breaking_Down_The_World_Of_Athia.pdf

Etc. etc. Its good stuff. I suggest that intermediate shader programmers and optimizers really pay attention to the talks at GDC. None of these discussions are easy, modern video games requires a lot of linear algebra, graphics know-how, hardware knowledge and more.

I honestly don't know of any better conferences than GDC on this subject. But if you're aware of any, please let me know.

So......either the gaming industry refuses to use any of this tech, in which case it is a circlejerk of programmers going "oh look how amazing we are" OR the industry does use this code and it isnt working all that great, given how terribly games are performing today.

Either way I dont see the point you are trying to make here. You like it therefore its good?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

even before covid shut it down I honestly never watched it. it was awesome as hell back in the day, but last 7 to 10 years or so it has been pretty boring and lackluster.

good riddance I say. short term greed has destroyed the industry, just like short term greed is destroying everything in our societies. if it wasn't for indie devs, I would have given up on gaming a long time ago.

It had become pretty cringe sadly. Though since the industry as whole have really done themselves no favours and driven themselves right into the ground with absolutely terrible releases.
There is no need for an event to hype people up over new games when the bar has been trampled into the ground and a great majority of the community are extremely weary of the big publishers that have been mired in nothing but controversy over their treatment of staff and issues with overzealous montisation.

How many times can a person look at any 3rd person looter shooter game from Ubisoft for the umpteenth time and genuinely say "YES, I want me some of that!!" ???

How many times can people get hyped for bad game ports like TLOU? or the pile of poo that turned out to be the new Saints Row game?

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

It had become pretty cringe sadly. Though since the industry as whole have really done themselves no favours and driven themselves right into the ground with absolutely terrible releases.
There is no need for an event to hype people up over new games when the bar has been trampled into the ground and a great majority of the community are extremely weary of the big publishers that have been mired in nothing but controversy over their treatment of staff and issues with overzealous montisation.

How many times can a person look at any 3rd person looter shooter game from Ubisoft for the umpteenth time and genuinely say "YES, I want me some of that!!" ???

How many times can people get hyped for bad game ports like TLOU? or the pile of poo that turned out to be the new Saints Row game?

It makes me sad the days of things like the halo 3 e3 reveal are over. That was a truly wonderful time.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

So......either the gaming industry refuses to use any of this tech, in which case it is a circlejerk of programmers going "oh look how amazing we are" OR the industry does use this code and it isnt working all that great, given how terribly games are performing today.

Either way I dont see the point you are trying to make here. You like it therefore its good?

I think I've read more threads on techpowerup about a stuttering in single gpu system, than I've ever read about mutli-gpu setups stuttering.

 

[cvaldes]

The heyday of the in person tradeshow was the Nineties. As the World Wide Web lengthened its reach, the usefulness of the physical tradeshow has diminished. Gone are the days of people flying home from a tradeshow with stacks of marketing collateral, complimentary magazine issues, demo CDs, etc.

The first big show to go was Comdex (RIP 2003) but it was really Apple who tolled the death bell when they declared that the 2008 Macworld Expo would be the last one they would attend (one year after the iPhone was announced).

Remember that E3 was a reincarnation of Summer CES. It had a solid run for about 10 years. By 2005, most of these major tradeshows had WiFi connectivity on the show floor and regular notebook computers (like Apple iBooks) had featured wifi functionality for several years.

While in person conferences still make sense for some developer events, it is increasingly clear that online is the way to reach a larger audience. This has been the trajectory for long before the COVID pandemic. Apple has moved their WWDC to a largely online event; I'm sure Dreamforce (Salesforce), OracleWorld and Google IO aren't far behind.

Unless ReedPop can successfully transition E3 into an online event, this show is basically over.

There's still some justification for in person tradeshows under very certain conditions that mostly don't apply to the technology industry. Things like wine industry trade tastings, cosmetics shows, etc. where there's a primary activity that can't be just doled out with some digital code attached to an e-mail.

 

[ReallyBigMistake]

Remember when E3 banned booth babes and turned on the light......E3 has been dead for years but I am glad it finally came crashing down

 

[dragontamer5788]

So......either the gaming industry refuses to use any of this tech, in which case it is a circlejerk of programmers going "oh look how amazing we are" OR the industry does use this code and it isnt working all that great, given how terribly games are performing today.

Either way I dont see the point you are trying to make here. You like it therefore its good?

The depth of information in that Ryzen optimization talk speaks for itself. You're not going to get a rundown on computer architecture like that anywhere else, aside from maybe Hot Chips. Its not like programmers come to GDC to share code with each other?? (I'm not entirely sure what you think happens at these conventions), so I'm really not sure what's going on in your mind's eye here...

I mean, if you're not a programmer, maybe its hard to see why this kind of talk is useful. And that's fine, GDC ain't a conference for gaming announcements or that sorta stuff. Its probably irrelevant to most people. But its definitely one of the more important professional programming conventions in the entire industry. That's not changing any time soon.

----------

Anyway, E3 itself has become less relevant because all these other conferences have sprung up and eaten its lunch. PAX has indie gamers attention. GDC is technical for programmers and graphics artists (not much talk about video game hype, its mostly technical subjects thats very dry, but very rarely talked about). And then the commercial guys like Nintendo have pretty much gone to direct marketing, such as Nintendo Directs. So there's not much left for E3 (which was always a gaming-news conference more so than anything else).

 

[Logoffon]

I can already see this coming. This year's EEE is already dead from the start.

 

[Icon Charlie]

What?

GDC is a tradeshow with expert programmers sharing the latest-and-greatest shader optimizations, C++ programming topics, and so forth. They're making good presentations every year.

Naa Not for the15 hundred dollars to stay for the weekend just hearing the same old news just regurgitated into news years format. They always jacked up the pricing in the Hotels during that time.

I rather spend that amount of money to a scholarship so someone who does have some sort of common sense make something out of themselves.... or create something for the betterment of mankind.

My days watching the tech industry go to hell in a hand basket are now over. I am that wealthy enough of a man to donate to those whom has a worthy cause.

 

[Hyderz]

E3 was supposed to be the place to be for games and exclusivity stuff that you can’t get normally with upcoming games and demos you can only try there before the internet got faster. The most recent e3 was pretty much all trailers which most people can view on YouTube. That said there were some niche stuff like vr… small game companies which you have never heard of with some great games. E3 should have evolved for example holding special E3 gaming tournaments or do more pop culture stuff.. I dunno

 

[Easo]

Ehh, I am honestly kinda sad. The exclusivity and company own shows have split it all up too much, imho.

 

[R-T-B]

So......either the gaming industry refuses to use any of this tech, in which case it is a circlejerk of programmers going "oh look how amazing we are" OR the industry does use this code and it isnt working all that great, given how terribly games are performing today.

Either way I dont see the point you are trying to make here. You like it therefore its good?

Or a lot of programmers are novices who could benefit from watching these talks?

 

[TheDeeGee]

Why would you risk a flu to see broken ass console port anyway?

Back in the late 90s and early 2000s it was a cool event because of how the tech was evolving.

 

[Vayra86]

Remember when E3 banned booth babes and turned on the light......E3 has been dead for years but I am glad it finally came crashing down

That's really where the decline set in, honestly

 

[Bwaze]

By some comments here you'd think gaming industry is in some sort of crysis, not reaching record after revord in sales and revenue?

The real reason is somewhere else entirely.

I guess shows like these make very little sense in a world that doesn't need journalusm. And E3 was primarily show for tech industry journalists to get their infirmation and then distribute it in their home areas. All this seems like a Pony Express world with coaches riding through high desert to get the newest information to you...