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E3 Games

E3 2023 Has Been Canceled (theverge.com) 34

E3 2023 has been called off "after huge gaming companies like Nintendo, Microsoft, and Ubisoft all said they wouldn't be participating in the event," reports The Verge. From the report: E3 2023 was scheduled for June 13th through 16th with a mix of industry-focused days and days that would be open to the public. But in the lead-up to June, there had been some worrying signs that things might be rocky for E3's revival. According to an email sent to employees and verified by IGN, E3 2023 "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." In an email to The Verge, Kyle Marsden-Kish, global VP of gaming at ReedPop, wrote: "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."

Marsden-Kish suggested the convention could return in subsequent years.
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E3 2023 Has Been Canceled

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  • Does anyone know what this is?

    • by Merk42 ( 1906718 ) on Thursday March 30, 2023 @04:35PM (#63412608)
      Yes, cancelled
    • Does anyone know what this is?

      It's amazing (or maybe not) how supposed writers can't articulate what something means. Even the original article doesn't mention what those two characters mean.

      Yes, one could always look it up, but then isn't it the job of journalists to inform their readers?

      • Exactly. Nowhere in the article does it say what the fuck "E3" is, or why anyone should care.

        All we know is that, whatever the fuck it is, it's cancelled.

        • by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

          I find it amusing this story has been up this long and no one has bothered trying to provide an answer.

          Probably because no one really knows any more, either.

          I can tell you what E3 stands for (Electronic Entertainment Expo) and what it was (a trade show for video game manufacturers, stores, and media), but that wasn't what was canceled. That died years ago, killed by the transition from physical media to digital downloads. With no real need for a trade show where manufacturers and stores got together, and no

        • Oh man, how sad it is when people on a supposed 'tech' site don't know what the E3 expo is. Really shows how far this community has fallen. Would be like someone on ESPN complaining "WTF is this Super Bowl thing they mention!?"

      • The implication is that if you don't know what E3 was, you won't care. Which is probably true. I only have one fond memory of E3 and that's meeting Mr. T there in 2002 ish. Haven't been since.
    • by dbialac ( 320955 )
      Anybody remember Comdex?
  • Remember video game magazines? Everyone thinks it was the Internet that killed them, but believe it or not they were still going strong through the mid 2000s.

    What killed them? Better data analytics. Companies like Sega & Nintendo had hard numbers to show the effect of advertising in those magazines. And it wasn't good for the mags. There was a pretty negligible effect on sales. In fact there probably never was much effect, even pre-Internet, but they didn't have the data to show it so they kept buyi
    • Citation for the insignificant advertising effect of the magazines?

      Having lived through the times and being an avid gamer and magazine subscriber, during the 90s mags were your only reasonable choice, in the early 2000s online mags became a thing as it was cheaper to run compared to printing, and then after websites/blogs/steam/youtube became more popular, the mags had nothing much to offer anymore. So, yes, the internet killed them. I have no citations either though, just personal experience through all
      • Did you read the ads? Or did you get excited because the next installment of your favorite game was announced in an article?

        The latter doesn't fill the magazine's pockets with money. But if they don't report about it, why would you buy it? Essentially, what killed them was that game makers noticed that they get the relevant advertisement for free.

        • I read every. single. page. including the ads, and the magazine arrival days were the best days of the month. But I did not have much purchasing power then though, and by the time I did have it was too late.
          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by crgrace ( 220738 )

            So you agree then that the ads were not effective. Even if they are read, if they don't cause you to buy the game (which you otherwise would not) then they are not effective.

            I also read video game magazines religiously in the mid 80s to the early 90s. I read every ad, but I can't think of a single game I hadn't heard of that I was moved to buy because of the ad. (I also was a kid so had limited purchasing power, but what I did buy was word-of-mouth or a really hyped game).

        • Just because it looks like an article, doesn't mean it isn't still sponsored content.

        • by mjwx ( 966435 )

          Did you read the ads? Or did you get excited because the next installment of your favorite game was announced in an article?

          The latter doesn't fill the magazine's pockets with money. But if they don't report about it, why would you buy it? Essentially, what killed them was that game makers noticed that they get the relevant advertisement for free.

          Well there were quite a few advertorials back in the day. Companies would literally buy gushing reviews in established magazines. Once online communities became popular they didn't work any more as you'd speak with people not being paid to promote a bad game.

          As a side note, we're seeing a similar effect with Epic store exclusives. A mediocre game is losing sales because the pool of buyers is smaller, so as the adver-hype wears off before it becomes an impulse buy for a lot of gamers. This is to say nothi

          • Well there were quite a few advertorials back in the day.

            I don't remember advertorials in gaming mags, it was a term I didn't know until I read non-gaming magazines and I wondered why there'd just be this painfully off-style article in the middle of the magazine that just didn't fit. But there was often that "questionable" review where there'd be a dearth of negatives and a higher score than others gave it and we'd find out that the publisher had taken them out for a pint and an hour at the strippers. Your 8bit journos could be bought cheap.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Remember video game magazines? Everyone thinks it was the Internet that killed them, but believe it or not they were still going strong through the mid 2000s.

      Checks Eurogamer and Rock Paper Shotgun... Re-reads above line, checks Eurogamer and Rock Paper Shotgun (other websites are available).. Magazines didn't disappear, they went online. Why, because it was easier to consume them. Those that were too late to adopt died out, any void left by departing players were filled by new ones. Gaming journalism is alive and well, E3 has just lost all relevance, other events like PAX have filled the demand E3 once had.

  • Game companies don't even bother hosting their own, let alone go to some where they'd have to compete with the competition for eyeballs.

    They used to be relevant until about the early 2000s. And even then, their value for the companies was already questionable. Because anything you wanted to know about a new item they could show off, you could already receive online. The amount of people who just stumbled upon an interesting new thing was even then negligible, and today, it's zero. If I am looking for someth

    • The only reason for a trade event would be for small groups trying to break into the market or get noticed and bought out.

      Why the big players ever felt it necessary, I don't get. Habit, maybe.

    • Fallout 4 at the E3 was probably the biggest and best game reveal of all time (2015). Could be wrong, I've only seen about 2 or 3 game reveals done this way... Basically I don't know what I'm talking about, but I won't let it stop me!

  • Thank Mike & Jerry (Score:5, Informative)

    by sudonim2 ( 2073156 ) on Thursday March 30, 2023 @05:02PM (#63412666)
    PAX has now officially killed E3. The fan-created expo is obviously superior to the industry show for reasons that should be prima fascia obvious to everyone.
    • Will someone think of the boothbabes?!? Oh the humanity!

      (actually E3 got rid of theirs years ago)

    • by Megane ( 129182 )
      I knew that ReedPop was behind PAX, but I didn't realize they ran E3 too. Anyhow, I enjoyed PAX South while it lasted, despite being the only big event around here that did fucking bag searches and metal detector booths at entry.
  • What do you mean no playable demos? Nintendo, Microsoft, and Ubisoft all have announced their own independent events where they can steal the limelight without competition. Quite specifically "Ubisoft Forward" was announced to happen around the same time as E3 so they can showcase their playable demos. That's new here, whereas Nintendo and Microsoft have in previous years hosted their own events too.

    E3 is making it sound like there's a schedule issue, whereas the reality is no one wants to pay their extorti

  • Trade shows used to make sense in a pre internet world. Now? They're just splurgy junkets where the marketing department gets to blow their budget on swag, travel places to basically party for a few days, and occasionally, almost accidentally, some business gets done.

    I've been to several e3 shows, and they're exactly like other industry tradeshows, albeit with more unwashed teens and fewer fat middle aged men.

    Nothing has been lost here.

  • How could we possibly hold an event and go back to a more intimate, relevant, and truly game-focused event without these giant corporate blobs that dominate the headlines but provide little value each year?

    Loving that IGDA is a better event than E3... and at this point even SGDQ a bunch of sweaty gamer nerds in a hotel ballroom is a better event.

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