E3’s futureNewsUpdatedThursday, 7th July 2022 by Mike

E3 is back and it’s under new management (update: it’s gone again)

“We’ll reshape what didn’t work”, says new organiser ReedPop

The Electronic Entertainment Expo — E3 — has had a pretty rough time of it lately. Cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, then online-only in 2021 and completely missing in action this year.

In some respects, you might be forgiven for not even noticing it was gone. We still got a metric butt-tonne of trailers around “E3 time” thanks to Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest, and the fact video game publishers are slowly catching on to the fact they all have their own YouTube channels.

But E3 is about tradition, dammit! If someone tried to cancel Christmas and bring in something called “Geoff Keighley’s Winter Gift Fest”, we’d rightly be up in arms, even if it ticked a lot of the same boxes.

Which is why it’s good to hear today’s announcement that long-time E3 organiser ESA has teamed up with ReedPop to put together next year’s event.

ReedPop is already the organiser of high-profile events including PAX and New York Comic Con — it also owns some big names in video game journalism, including Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, and Nintendo Life.

ReedPop has already confirmed E3 2023 will be a mix of in-person and online events, and will be open to consumers as well as members of the media. Kyle Marsden-Kish, who’s heading up the new E3 team, promised next year’s expo will be “recognisably epic — a return to form that honours what’s always worked, while reshaping what didn’t and setting a new benchmark for video game expos in 2023 and beyond.”

So, like, no pressure.

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Update – 30th March 2023

E3 2023 has now officially been cancelled, after Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Sega, and Tencent all reportedly withdrew from the event.

Show organizer ReedPop announces E3 2023 will not take place as scheduled this June, with both physical and digital events canceled. Alongside the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), both parties will re-evaluate the future of E3.

Official E3 website

If you read our above post, you won’t be surprised to hear we’re pretty disappointed about this. We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed that E3’s promised “epic” revival will still come at some point in the future.