The Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, has been a cornerstone of video game events since its premier in 1995, but things have been rocky for the show since the COVID-19 pandemic. The organizing company, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), and ReedPop, organizer for other gaming events such as PAX, entered a partnership in 2023 to help produce that year’s E3. Unfortunately, the companies have since come to a “mutual decision” to part ways.
The separation comes after ReedPop and the ESA’s first collaborative effort to host E3 in 2023 didn’t come to fruition. Due to lack of interest from major game publishers, 2023’s event, which was intended to take place from June 13 to 16 that year, was cancelled. Prior to this, E3 was cancelled in 2020 and 2022 over concerns regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, while the 2021 event was purely digital. The ESA has not explicitly cancelled plans for E3 in 2024, but it has informed the Los Angeles Convention Center, E3’s traditional venue, that it will not host a 2024 show there.
While the future of E3 2024 isn’t clear, the ESA is working on “a complete reinvention of” E3 for 2025, according to GamesIndustry.biz, a subsidiary of ReedPop. According to ESA’s president and CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis, “We are continuing to explore how we can evolve [E3] to best serve the video game industry and are evaluating every aspect of the event, from format to location.”
