The E3 Games Conference can take its toll in 2021

The Entertainment Software Association, the video game trading group, plans to turn their 2021 E3 conference into a digital-only event this summer, after banning the traditional Los Angeles gathering this summer last year because of the pandemic.

The plans, first reported in the Video Games Chronicle this morning, still need permission from the publishers who traditionally spend much of their major game and hardware calls to the early collection a summer that attracts tens of thousands of attendees from around the globe to get over it. Los Angeles Convention Center.

ESA issued a statement confirming plans were underway, but declined to provide details:

“We can confirm that we are changing the E3 experience for 2021 and will soon share details of how we will bring the global video game community together,” the statement said. communicates well with publishers, developers and board companies, and we look forward to sharing details of their involvement soon. “

Pitch documentation for the proposed digital show includes three days of live broadcast between June 15 and June 17, the original dates for this year’s show, according to a VGC report.

The programming would include several two-hour keynote sessions, an awards show, a preview night on June 14, and smaller streams from the show’s publishers, influencers and media partners.

Media previews would have been held the week before, as the show would typically feature stand-alone events announced by Big Three console makers and, increasingly, major publishers in the days before opening. the show officially.

The digital conference would be accompanied by game demos on consumer platforms to present some of the personal play at the conference to attendees for hours to get the first crack at their favorite titles.

For the first forty years, E3 was officially limited to “trade only” – people working for developers, publishers, hardware manufacturers – and thousands of media members. In the last few years, as the show developed its dual responsibilities as an industry gathering of the tribes and a marketing show, it opened its doors in the evening to up to 15,000 fans.

But that pandemic stopped it all. The conference’s corporate collection has been postponed, and an attempt is being made to draw an online version at a very short notice.

Ubisoft and Electronic Arts

EA
they held their own events, and third-party organizations had smaller displays, but the impact was spread in a year when video game usage was aired, bargains and benefits gained, and both Sony and Microsoft

MSFT

MSFT

MSFT
they launched next-generation consoles.

E3 has been recreated more than several times in the nearly three decades since its inception. Renewals have become more important in recent years as Electronic Arts, Sony and Activision

ATVI
pulled out, redistributing the millions of dollars they previously spent on a complex booth and media event for other marketing efforts and their own special events.