After a three-year break and online replacement events, a “real” E3 is scheduled to take place again in 2023: the organizers of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) have confirmed the return of the most important gaming fair to the Los Angeles Convention Center.
The E3 2023 is to take place from June 11 to 16, 2023 in the traditional way, the ESA writes in its announcement. The organizers had already promised last year that E3 2023 should take place in Los Angeles again. However, the past few years have shown that such promises cannot always be kept – Gamescom also experienced this.
Weak corona balance sheet
Most recently, E3 2019 took place in Los Angeles. In the pandemic period, a short-term complete cancellation followed in 2020, and a purely online event in 2021. In 2022, only one online event was promised before the trade fair was finally canceled again.
After this bad corona balance, the relevance of the E3 is questionable from the point of view of many observers – after all, video games have been advertised and sold in recent years even without the E3. Like Gamescom, E3 is under particular pressure next year: it has to prove that it still has a role to play.
In 2021, when E3 was held digitally, the E3 logo was emblazoned on some live streams from different developers and publishers, but there was hardly any trade fair identity. In fact, the digital E3 was little different from 2020 and 2022, when the fair was completely canceled and replaced by individual one-off events from the big game companies. ESA justified the cancellation for 2022 with the effort to offer a “revitalized physical and digital E3 experience” in 2023. She has to deliver in the summer of 2023.
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