E3 2023 is canceled.
What Could this Mean for the Future of Conventions?
Speculation and thoughts on their cancellation and the gaming world’s interest.
On March 30th, we received an email that E3 was being canceled for 2023. And upon further investigation, their website more clearly explained that they are discussing the future of E3 itself.
Our team has a few speculations as to why this happened. Some in the industry have been speculating that E3 was a dead con in general. Others have mentioned that esports is declining, and people are more interested in new releases. And, of course, there is always the impact of COVID-19 that’s affected conventions and their attendance in general.
We speculate that a lack of attendance, interest, and vendors has spurred a conversation around the necessity of E3 itself. In a world where we have Live Letters from Square Enix and Nintendo Directs, do people really need an in-person convention to announce big-name titles? People may be more interested in conventions geared toward their specific games and systems. Personally, I cannot wait to go to FanFest for Final Fantasy XIV, so I understand the desire to attend a convention where everything there is for you.
Another speculation is the difficulty of next-gen hardware’s growing demand. Anyone who has tried to get a PS5 (or whatever-the-new-Xbox is) knows that it’s not that simple, and neither is it easy on the wallet. People are staying more loyal to one console out of sheer necessity because they are unable to obtain the latest-gen devices in general. With more exclusives coming out as well, this line is becoming even more divided. We are even seeing companies hosting their own events in place of E3. This is quite the chicken or egg situation — we saw big names dropping out before notice of this cancellation, so it’s hard to tell if they left due to lack of interest or there’s a lack of interest now that they won’t be attending.
As I mentioned before, there are also discussions that people just want new releases, not just updates and esports. And new games, to us, mean more opportunities for indies. There are certainly better spaces catered to indie games — we have seen success in PAX Rising’s Showcase, a surprising number of indie creators at MAGfest, features at Comic Cons, and pop-up events like SIX and MIX that are solely indie-focused. For somebody wanting to find new games to play, various options are available that aren’t just E3.
But… not everyone is an indie games enthusiast. In fact, E3 came to my forefront upon hearing a coworker at my teaching job mention it to me. Sitting at PAX East as media and a panelist, I expressed nervousness about being accepted to E3 and was instead told by someone in the industry that I was a shoo-in since Game Raven Review was already at PAX East. This surprised me — from outside of the industry, E3 was always seen as the “big goal.” It’s the convention that those who aren’t “serious” gamers are aware of — and it has been the most impressive feat I’ve mentioned to those who aren’t in the indie gaming, game development, or gaming journalism industry. E3’s enticement of big AAA headliners and the longtime trust that this was a convention focused on gaming was working for quite some time.
I worry that this may be an audience-to-industry disconnect. Are we, as a gaming industry, becoming too niche? We at Game Raven Review obviously love and support indies and new releases. But is this pushing gamers who want to continue playing Call of Duty or Madden’s newest installment to the back burner? While this isn’t the usual audience we focus on, this is worrisome to us for two reasons: these gamers have been the backbone of gaming for quite some time and easily helped games merge into daily life, and this crowd already has a foot in the door: any intense fan of one game could be persuaded to love a new indie in the same genre (or, as I would say, ‘just a different font’.) Is it possible that so many of us are focused on our growing inner circles, so much so that we are stuck in a bubble?
This may be the case, but I hope it isn’t.
TLDR; We don’t have any insider information. We don’t have connections with E3 to know what’s going on behind the scenes. But we do know what we see in our online and offline communities.
We would’ve loved to attend E3 and are hopeful we will be able to in the future, but we will be keeping a close eye on E3’s future and the future of conventions in general.
