The E3 trade show is shutting down for good

Since 1995 Electronic Entertainment Expo has been the main event in the game industry. From the huge exhibition halls in Los Angeles, the brightest developers' speeches and loud announcements were broadcasted to the whole world, important news about what awaits gamers in a day, a year and even in several years were announced. There were also curiosities, which were analyzed into memes, like Cyberpunk 2077 presentation performed by Keanu Reeves. Unfortunately, all of this has now been put to rest. As they say in such cases - "the era is gone".

The ESA (Entertainment Software Association) organization has been in charge of the exhibition since its inception. Its president Stanley Pierre-Louis announced recently that the event has been canceled indefinitely. This decision was made for a number of reasons, including the activity of competitors (the same Summer Game Fest), the departure of the largest participants, as well as failures during the pandemic, when almost all social activity moved to social networks. Attempts to give Electronic Entertainment Expo a second wind went nowhere. Pierre-Louis said that it was a pity to part with his favorite event, but in the current situation - inevitable.

The collapse did not happen immediately. A kind of chain reaction of the departure of partners was launched by Sony, which in 2018 separated from the main show and gave a start to its own presentations. Following the PlayStation division, publishers ran away from the show one by one. The last time it was held live and with its own scope in 2019, but then problems sprinkled like from the horn of plenty. ESA's idea was finally undermined by a virus known to everyone, because of which they had to move everything online. As it turned out, this was the final stage of more than twenty years of adventure.