It’s not really super surprising given the events happening across the world, but it seems as though E3 2021 as a physical event has already been cancelled.
In a report published by the Board of Los Angeles Convention and Tourism Development Commission says that E3 2021 is a “cancelled live event”
E3 was scheduled to take place from June 15th until June 17th. The event was also cancelled last year and the ESA didn’t put on much of a digital event. This gap was largely filled by publishers holding their own events and also Geoff Keighley’s Summer Games Fest which is returning for another this year.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in 2022 and beyond. Even prior to the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 events, several publishers had already pulled out of E3, with other industry people claiming the event to be redundant.
The industry achieved many sales and vierership records around the globe last year, in a year where E3 didn’t exist and publishers held their own event, so it definitely puts a lot of pressure on the ESA to find a place for E3 going forward.
We still expect to see majority of the major publishers hold events in June, so for the most part, it won’t feel all that different without E3 for us back here in Australia.
