The Electronic Entertainment Expo, once the largest and most prestigious trade show in video games, has been permanently cancelled.
On Tuesday, the convention’s website had gone nearly entirely blank but for a statement reading, “After more than two decades of E3, each one bigger than the last, the time has come to say goodbye. Thanks for the memories.”
E3, known as “video game Christmas”, began in 1995 in Los Angeles. The message ended with “GGWP”, an acronym for “Good game, well played” often used as a friendly signoff after a match in a video game.
The coronavirus pandemic dealt the fatal blow to the confab, forcing a total cancellation in 2020, an online-only event in 2021, and another total cancellation in 2022. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which organized the event, had planned to return to an in-person E3 in 2023 but ultimately scrapped the event and did not put on an online alternative.
E3, where gaming’s biggest companies formerly debuted their splashiest titles and teasers, had been in decline for years as more and more gaming companies shifted to streaming their own events for marquee announcements.
Nintendo did so in 2011, skipping E3 in favor of broadcasting its own keynote address, and Sony announced it would take news about its Playstation console elsewhere in 2018.
Years before, by contrast, E3 was the center of the gaming universe: Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo once all debuted new consoles at the expo in a single year.
The shift mirrors a transition away from in-person purchases of video games to online downloads.
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“We know it’s difficult to say goodbye to such a beloved event, but it’s the right thing to do given the new opportunities our industry has to reach fans and partners,” ESA’s president and CEO, Stanley Pierre-Louis, told the Washington Post. “Any one of these major companies can create an individual showcase … That’s exciting for our industry, and it means it’s an opportunity for them to explore how to engage new audiences in different ways.”
The convention had attempted to revive interest in 2017 with an open invitation to the public. Roughly 66,000 people attended in 2019, E3’s final in-person iteration. Previously, the convention required a demonstrated connection to the video game industry from attendees, maintaining an air of exclusivity.