E3 2023 Canceled

By Scott C.

It is Groundhog Day again for the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). 

Repeating last year’s theme that saw 2022’s E3 get canceled, the 2023 show also got canceled yesterday by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). Support for the event was slowly bleeding out recently, with a good amount of publishers deciding not to go this June. For instance, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Tencent, and Sega were not going. Sony, however, dropped out of E3 in 2019, so nothing unusual there.

In a recent press release by the ESA and ReedPop, it was stated that this fresh partnership is still focused on holding future E3 events. Of course, time will tell on that. GamesIndustry.biz (ReedPop being the parent company) has an interview with ESA president and CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis discussing the recent news. Thus, those curious can click here to read that interview.

This year’s event was scheduled for June 13th-June 16th at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It would have been organized by the ESA and first time with ReedPop. E3 2023 would also have been the first in-person show since 2019! Yet gamers saw 2020 get canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 was all online, and (again) 2022 was canceled due to a variety of reasons. But within that chaos was the birth of E3’s new competition: Geoff Keighley’s annual Summer Game Fest, which began in 2020. This year’s online fest begins on June 8th. 

For now, E3 is in its version of Groundhog Day, thanks to back-to-back cancellations. But with a future very much in doubt now, gamers have to wonder if E3 2019 was the last true version of the show…ever.

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