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Update: In response to a request for comment from TechRadar, ESA provided the following statement:
“We can confirm that we are transforming the E3 experience by 2021 and will soon share exact details on how we are bringing the global gaming community together.”
E3 2021 is off, well at least your in-person event is. We already suspected that there would be no live Electronic Entertainment Expo gaming event in 2021, but LA City documents now appear to confirm that this is the case.
Posted in Resetera (thanks GamesRadar), LA City notes on its agenda, ahead of an upcoming meeting on March 3 on conventions to be held in the city in 2021, that E3 2021 is a “live event canceled in 2021” . While the agenda does not exactly confirm why the event is canceled, it is almost certainly due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
That means we won’t have a physical E3 2021, but it’s not all bad news. The agenda also details that the City is “working on [a] License 2022 and 2023 “, suggesting that there are plans to bring a physical E3 event back in the future, although it is unpredictable when it will actually be in the current global climate.
This is good news for some, given that the relevance of E3 has been debated since before the pandemic, and Sony skipped the event in recent years.
Given the success of major publishers despite the event’s total cancellation last year, it remained uncertain whether there were plans to continue holding E3 in the future. However, while these plans confirm that more physical E3 events are being considered, the future of the event (and the global situation) remains unpredictable.
We reached out to ESA to see if they have any comments on the City of Los Angeles agenda.
E3 may be going digital
While there may not be a physical E3 this year, it looks like we could have a fully digital E3 this year. As reported by VGC, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which hosts E3, has outlined proposals for E3 2021 to be held digitally over three days between June 15-17.
Under the proposal, this digital event would involve live coverage during those days, comprised of “multiple two-hour keynote sessions from gaming partners, an awards show, a June 14 preview night, and other smaller broadcasts of game publishers, influencers and media partners. “
Additionally, demos will launch online, while the media will preview games from the event the week before via remote replay streams.
However, ESA’s plan is based on the endorsement of game publishers. Last year, E3 2020 was canceled entirely, despite ESA saying it intended to host the event virtually. The reasoning? Most of the developers and publishers held their own live streams online and instead revealed.
The digital event did not take place, and fans instead tuned in to E3 alumnus Geoff Keighley’s four-month Summer Games Fest, which is confirmed to return in 2021, and a host of other digital exhibits.
It looks like we will get a firm answer on whether the E3 2021 digital event will take place soon, with ESA telling VGC: “We can confirm that we are transforming the E3 experience for 2021 and will soon share exact details on how ‘we are joining to the global gaming community. “
“We are having excellent conversations with publishers, developers and companies across the board, and we look forward to sharing details about their participation soon,” the statement continued.
