The ESA might have disappointed fans by canceling E3 2020, but the organization allayed fears by saying that they would be putting together a digital show. That was the right move, but it looks like it won’t work out as we’ve just seen the online E3 2020 canceled by the organizers. It’s not all bad news, though!
Why was online E3 2020 canceled? Well, the disruption from the pandemic is cited as the main reason. It probably didn’t help that some companies (most notably Bethesda Softworks) outright announced that they wouldn’t be doing an online presentation.
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Here is a statement given to PC Gamer:
“Given the disruption brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, we will not be presenting an online E3 2020 event in June. Instead, we will be working with exhibitors to promote and showcase individual company announcements, including on www.E3expo.com, in the coming months,” the rep said. “We look forward to bringing our industry and community together in 2021 to present a reimagined E3 that will highlight new offerings and thrill our audiences.”
That’s the end of the bad news — it’s all good news from here!
Although we’re seeing online E3 2020 canceled, the fate of E3 2021 is much less uncertain. The Entertainment Software Association told its partners that it already set the dates for next year’s show as June 15–17, 2020.
While it wasn’t explicitly stated as such, we can safely assume that they’ll probably do the usual pre-show conferences that we all know and love. However, that could change as next year’s show is stated to be “reimagined” in some unspecified fashion.
There’s still the matter of this year’s presentations. As noted in the statement above, we’re probably going to get a few Nintendo Direct-style streams spread out throughout the entire year instead of in one single week. The delays for future gaming news will surely be a downer to some, but it seems like the standard weeklong event just might not be doable in the current environment.
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