E3 2023 has officially been cancelled. Organiser ReedPop and the ESA confirmed the sad news recently, stating that this year’s show will not go ahead as planned due to a lack of interest in the annual event. This follows a string of dropouts from the publisher lineup including Ubisoft, Tencent, Sega, Xbox and Nintendo. Meanwhile, Geoff Keighley reassured fans that Summer Game Fest will still go ahead in E3’s place this year.
The ESA and ReedPop released a statement saying that it was simply too difficult to put together a show since publishers didn’t have playable demos ready in time while there was a notable lack of interest or enthusiasm from most companies to attend this year.
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A statement provided to Video Games Chronicle from ReedPop’s global VP of gaming Kyle Marsden-Kish reads:
“This was a difficult decision because of all the effort we and our partners put toward making this event happen, but we had to do what’s right for the industry and what’s right for E3. We appreciate and understand that interested companies wouldn’t have playable demos ready and that resourcing challenges made being at E3 this summer an obstacle they couldn’t overcome. For those who did commit to E3 2023, we’re sorry we can’t put on the showcase you deserve and that you’ve come to expect from ReedPop’s event experiences.”
So there you have it. After Ubisoft pulled out of the event and companies like Tencent showed no interest in attending, E3 was already on a rocky path towards possible cancellation. Despite E3 2023 not moving forward, fans will still be able to tune into various showcases and presentations this June including the Xbox Games Showcase, Ubisoft Forward and a rumoured PlayStation showcase set to take place before June.
Geoff Keighley saw an opportunity to talk about Summer Game Fest, which was originally envisioned a few years ago to fill the gap left by E3 due to the global pandemic. Keighley’s show has since attracted the attention of big gaming publishers and is set to take place again this June. “Four years ago, I realized that E3 wasn’t evolving as it needed to compete in a global, digital world. So we started building what’s next,” said Keighley in a tweet. “See at Summer Game Fest [on] June 8.”
Source: Video Games Chronicle
