The Biggest Event In Gaming Has Officially Been Canceled
The biggest live event for gamers and those in the gaming industry has officially been canceled for the year 2022.
Gamers and investors alike were all holding out hope that the biggest showcase event in gaming would somehow make it, but it has been officially announced that E3 is being canceled. Based on the uncertainty of the pandemic and the consistent wavering of requirements for in-person events by health officials, both the digital and in-person events have been done away with. This heartbreaking news comes on the heels that E3’s in-person event had been canceled, though there was still some lingering hope that gamers and people could watch from home and see what new games would be coming to consoles soon. Sadly, everyone will have to wait for announcements via some other medium.
Canceling E3 makes total sense considering the myriad of game studios that have been showcasing their games through online video format. PlayStation has their “State of Play” showcases, Nintendo has their “Nintendo Direct” shows, and more developers have gone the way of showing off new titles in quick snippets that are usually posted on YouTube. While the world collectively waits for the pandemic to finally be over, it seems that health officials are consistently warning of massive gathers of people. E3 is certainly the biggest event in gaming, so canceling it makes total sense, despite the meaning that gamers won’t be able to see all the upcoming titles.
E3 began as a trade showcase for industry professionals way back in 1995, since then, the show has grown exponentially. From 2009 to 2015, the trade show grew even larger. Starting in 2016, E3 would welcome all who would want to experience the tradeshow level of gaming. The great thing was that studios would often bring demos of games that were highly anticipated, leaving gamers ecstatic that they would be demoing the game before anyone else had. Even EA, one of the biggest studios, devised their own event based on E3. EA Play was the usual outdoor event every year that was thrown on by the game studio, and it allowed people to demo new entries in Madden, FIFA, and many other titles offered by Electronic Arts. After the in-person event of E3 was announced to be canceled, EA also announced the cancelation of EA Play. Now it appears as if studios would rather turn to release their titles via online showcases for the time being.
E3 is only canceled for the year 2022, so depending on how the world looks by next year, it could be right back to where it belongs. IGN has also stated that the ESA aka Entertainment Software Association, which throws on the event, will be back in a big way for 2023. The uncertainty and health of everyone concerned is clearly the most important thing to worry about, so instead of adding to the glaring health corner issues, the ESA decided to completely cancel their event this year. While this is going to come as a major letdown for a lot of people, it is kind of the right thing to do. Hopefully, in lieu of E3 being canceled, there will be more game announcements done via YouTube this summer.
