We store cookies, you can get more info from our privacy policy.

CONFIRMED: E3 2020 To Be Cancelled Due To Covid-19

by Donald Theriault - March 10, 2020, 6:38 pm EDT
Total comments: 20 Source: Twitter

Pay no attention to the 2019 away team hammering nails into a coffin. *UPDATED WITH CONFIRMATION*

UPDATE The ESA has confirmed to Gamespot that the live event portion of E3 will be cancelled. "After careful consultation with our member companies regarding the health and safety of everyone in our industry--our fans, our employees, our exhibitors and our longtime E3 partners--we have made the difficult decision to cancel E3 2020, scheduled for June 9-11 in Los Angeles."

Exhibitors will be refunded in due course, and a digital event of some nature will likely be held.

Original story follows.


An announcement is rumored to be happening as soon as tomorrow morning regarding the cancellation of the 2020 E3 expo.

Devolver Digital, known for their elaborate videos airing around E3, made a public statement tonight suggesting the show would be cancelled:

This was along multiple media reports suggesting the cancellation of the show:

Should the cancellation be confirmed by the Electronic Software Association, it would follow the postponement of the Game Developer's Conference and the cancellation of the South by Southwest festival in Austin which was expected to feature a few gaming related announcements.

Talkback

pokepal148Spencer Johnson, Contributing WriterMarch 10, 2020

I suppose everything has a silver lining.

broodwarsMarch 10, 2020

Good riddance. With the next-gen consoles looking increasingly likely to be delayed into 2021 for the same reason, no one had anything they could show this year anyway. All the major companies can just throw together their own online trailer reel if they had anything worthwhile.

This show was looking like a dumpster fire anyway with all the companies and prominent people who'd declined to participate, so it was better that it was just killed off. I would be very surprised if it made any real return next year in the same format.

LemonadeMarch 10, 2020

This is really sad. I love E3.
I guess we  will still get some kind of Direct and Xbox will still do some kind of show

KhushrenadaMarch 11, 2020

Quote from: broodwars

This show was looking like a dumpster fire anyway with all the companies and prominent people who'd declined to participate,

Exactly! I was actually getting excited for E3 because of how much I was expecting people to roast it this year. It seemed to be already developing as the worst E3 ever despite the supposed launch plans of TWO major consoles being showcased at the event. Usually, new console hype makes for a special E3 but not this year. I want to see the bitter tears of gamers.

Quote from: broodwars

Good riddance. With the next-gen consoles looking increasingly likely to be delayed into 2021 for the same reason, no one had anything they could show this year anyway. All the major companies can just throw together their own online trailer reel if they had anything worthwhile.

Not quite good riddance for me. With Nintendo being so secretive about what they are planning to release this year, the opportunity seemed ripe for them to dunk on the competition even more this year with some big announcements while MS and Sony might struggle to have anything games of much hype for their new systems. In any case, by having E3, it's been the one source to sort of force the video game companies to make some kinds of announcements for future plans and what is in the works. Even if companies may not always like the E3 experience, avoiding it meant giving your competitors more exposure. Right now, MS and Sony seem to be playing a waiting game with each other to see who will announce firm info about their new consoles and what the price might even be. Nintendo has suddenly gone dark for the longest period in Direct history about what they've got in development or upcoming.

To lose E3, what is going to be the schedule for gaming news? What will be the waiting periods for updates and announcements? Even broadcast networks and movie studios will have some sort of yearly events in which they make a lot of announcements for upcoming projects. They might not announce everything and plans can change but they usually reveal a large portion of their plans and people know when to expect them. Right now, gaming enthusiasts no longer have that. There is no date that we can look to in the future and know that once we reach it then we'll finally get some solid answers as to what to expect for a year or so. That I don't like.

broodwarsMarch 11, 2020

Quote from: Khushrenada

To lose E3, what is going to be the schedule for gaming news? What will be the waiting periods for updates and announcements? Even broadcast networks and movie studios will have some sort of yearly events in which they make a lot of announcements for upcoming projects. They might not announce everything and plans can change but they usually reveal a large portion of their plans and people know when to expect them. Right now, gaming enthusiasts no longer have that. There is no date that we can look to in the future and know that once we reach it then we'll finally get some solid answers as to what to expect for a year or so. That I don't like.

I expect GamesCom & Paris Games Week will be fairly big this year as a result of E3's timely demise. I can easily imagine this virus situation to be much more contained and managed by that point, so things will probably settle down to normal by then.

That said, I also expect that both the NextBox & the PS5 will be delayed into 2021 due to neither company being able to ramp up console production in time for a Holiday 2020 launch. And honestly, given how terrible new console launch lineups tend to be, that's probably for the best. That's also a favorable situation for Nintendo since it buys them 6 months to a year of the Switch still being relatively comparable to the current consoles in terms of 3rd party porting.

The story has been updated: it's dead, Jim.

(And nothing of value was lost.)

Luigi DudeMarch 11, 2020

I wonder if this is why we haven't had a Nintendo Direct in so long?  Nintendo usually likes to wait until E3 for there 2nd half lineup, so if they've been hearing reports that E3 was on shaky ground the last few months, they've probably wanted to wait until it was officially canceled so they'd have a better idea on what games to reveal when now.

nickmitchMarch 11, 2020

Quote from: Luigi

I wonder if this is why we haven't had a Nintendo Direct in so long?  Nintendo usually likes to wait until E3 for there 2nd half lineup, so if they've been hearing reports that E3 was on shaky ground the last few months, they've probably wanted to wait until it was officially canceled so they'd have a better idea on what games to reveal when now.

This makes a lot of sense.  Their announcements take into consideration the timing of future announcements.  Their tentpole strategy around E3 doesn't work if there is no E3, so they'll have to rethink how they approach Directs for the rest of the year.

That being said, they may also have a number of manufacturing/production concerns that could delay product releases and announcements.

Ian SaneMarch 11, 2020

E3 was three months from now.  Have that many events been cancelled over the coronavirus that are that far off from now?  I know some sporting events have been cancelled or postponed but they were events due in the next few days or weeks, not in June.

broodwarsMarch 11, 2020

Quote from: Ian

E3 was three months from now.  Have that many events been cancelled over the coronavirus that are that far off from now?  I know some sporting events have been cancelled or postponed but they were events due in the next few days or weeks, not in June.

To put it plainly, Coronavirus wasn't the actual reason E3 was cancelled. It was just a convenient excuse that allowed the ESA to save face over what would have been an abysmal show anyway & probably also allowed them to get out of their contract with the City without paying massive fines. Coronavirus will likely be under control by June. They weren't seriously concerned about a health risk by then.

The real reason why E3 was cancelled was because the disruption in overseas manufacturing & the poor state of the market right now's probably led to the PS5 & Series X not being anywhere near ready for a Holiday 2020 release. Combine that with all the big gaming companies that had already pulled out of E3 (even His Holiness, the Doritos Pope, wasn't attending for the 1st time ever), and it's clear the show would have been a disaster if it'd moved forward.

TOPHATANT123March 11, 2020

This is disappointing, listening to impressions from the show floor is always entertaining but the announcements are the star of the show and they can be done digitally, so not a huge deal.

BeautifulShyMarch 11, 2020

Quote from: Ian

E3 was three months from now.  Have that many events been cancelled over the coronavirus that are that far off from now?  I know some sporting events have been cancelled or postponed but they were events due in the next few days or weeks, not in June.

As mentioned in the article yes there have been events canceled because of CORVID-19. I don't know how many sporting events that have been canceled but in the NBA there have been talks today on how to go about things if fans are not allowed in to watch the games and all other fun things that go along with that.

E3 joined the list at the bottom here today, and given that the city of Seattle is restricting public gatherings to 250 people, I'm going on the assumption that PAX West is going to go down for the count soon.

ShyGuyMarch 11, 2020

Video games are over.

M.K.UltraMarch 12, 2020

It was mentioned above that the announcements, arguably my favorite part of E3, could still be delivered in online videos. I wonder if the press playing demos could also be done remotely. Could developers and publishers give the games press online access to demos of games and still have the software be secure? They could then report on them with hands on previews and first impressions from their homes or offices all around the same time of year.

Mop it upMarch 12, 2020

RIP E3 2020, we hardly knew ye.

nickmitchMarch 14, 2020

Quote from: Ian

E3 was three months from now.  Have that many events been cancelled over the coronavirus that are that far off from now?  I know some sporting events have been cancelled or postponed but they were events due in the next few days or weeks, not in June.

The timing is dubious, considering what the state of the show would've been otherwise.  It should be noted that the WWE has refused to cancel/postpone WrestleMania, which is in like 3 weeks.

The only reason they haven't cancelled Wrestlemania yet is because they're trying to push the host region into cancelling it so they get a major insurance payout. Though Vince McMahon would probably rather die than move the show: he continued running a show after Owen Hart DIED IN THE RING, and ran a show two days after the 9/11 attacks.

Ian SaneMarch 15, 2020

The WWE hasn't exactly built a reputation where you would give them the benefit of the doubt.  But if insurance policies rely on the government cancelling something as opposed to the promoter then the government has to take the initiative and cancel large events.  The WWE would be fine either way but a lot of smaller wrestling promotions have shows the same weekend to try to cash in on the Wrestlemania hype and those are not necessarily promotions that can afford to cancel a big show without an insurance payout to cover it.

People tend to think of businesses from the perspective of large corporations but you have to look at it from the perspective of the little guys.  There are going to be small time shows or concerts or whatever where losing revenue from a cancellation could bankrupt them.  Same with small businesses being forced to close for a few weeks.  Think of something like a fundraiser - a charity could have a large portion of their annual funding hinging on a big annual fundraiser that happens to fall within this time period.  So if insurance can cover it, the government should do what will ensure a payout.  You can be cynical about a big business not wanting to close out of a greed but not so much by a small business that can't afford to.

nickmitchMarch 16, 2020

Quote from: Shaymin

The only reason they haven't cancelled Wrestlemania yet is because they're trying to push the host region into cancelling it so they get a major insurance payout. Though Vince McMahon would probably rather die than move the show: he continued running a show after Owen Hart DIED IN THE RING, and ran a show two days after the 9/11 attacks.

I remember that PPV. It was rough to watch after the incident. But I think Vince has a "the show must go on" mentality. In honesty, the show after 9/11 was arguably a positive in that people needed something to be or at least feel normal, even something as silly as pro wrestling.

To Ian's point, yeah, WWE is probably looking for the state/local government to make the call. I think it's up to the municipality? Even though Vince probably knows canceling kills those smaller shows around the same time, it's hard to believe he gives a shit beyond looking responsible/bad press.

Got a news tip? Send it in!
Advertisement
Advertisement