E3 Games Conference May Be Headed To Virtual Version In 2021

The Entertainment Software Association, the video game trade group, is planning to morph its 2021 E3 conference into a digital-only event this summer, after cancelling last summer’s traditional Los Angeles gathering because of the pandemic.

The plans, first reported in Video Games Chronicle this morning, still need sign-off from the publishers who traditionally time many of their biggest game and hardware announcements to the early-summer gathering that attracts tens of thousands of attendees from around the globe to overflow the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The ESA released a statement affirming plans are underway, but declined to provide specifics:

“We can confirm that we are transforming the E3 experience for 2021 and will soon share exact details on how we’re bringing the global video game community together,” according to the statement. “We are having great conversations with publishers, developers and companies across the board, and we look forward to sharing details about their involvement soon.”

Pitch documents for the proposed digital show include three days of live-streamed coverage between June 15 and June 17, the original dates for this year’s show, according to the VGC report.

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

Media previews would be held in the preceding week, much as the show usually featured stand-alone announcement events by the Big Three console makers and, increasingly, major publishers in the days before the show officially opens.

The digital conference would be accompanied by game demos on consumer platforms to replace some of the in-person play at the conference that had attendees line up for hours to get a first crack at favorite titles.

For its first couple of decades, E3 was officially limited to “trade-only” – people who worked for developers, publishers, hardware makers – and thousands of media members. In recent years, as the show evolved its dual roles as industry gathering of the tribes and marketing showcase, it opened its doors in afternoons to up to 15,000 fan attendees.

But the pandemic put all that on hold. The conference’s physical gathering was cancelled, and attempts to pull together an online version on relatively short notice foundered.

Ubisoft and Electronic Arts
EA
held their own events, and third-party organizations had some smaller showcases, but the impact was splintered in a year when video game usage skyrocketed, deals and acquisitions mushroomed, and both Sony and Microsoft
MSFT
MSFT
MSFT
launched next-generation consoles.

E3 has been reinvented more than a few times in the nearly three decades of its existence. Reinvention has become even more important in recent years as Electronic Arts, Sony and Activision
ATVI
pulled out, reapportioning the millions of dollars they previously spent on an elaborate booth and media event for other marketing efforts and their own specialized events.