Final Up to date: January 7, 2022
ESA, the organisers of the large online game trade occasion E3 – the Digital Leisure Expo – formally confirmed that an in-person E3 2022 has been cancelled for the third 12 months in a row because of the ongoing COVID pandemic.
In a press release launched on the ESA’s web site, the corporate confirmed that they might not be holding the in-person occasion following its cancellation in each 2020 and 2021. The assertion reads, “As a result of ongoing well being dangers surrounding COVID-19 and its potential impression on the security of exhibitors and attendees, E3 won’t be held in particular person in 2022. We stay extremely enthusiastic about the way forward for E3 and stay up for saying extra particulars quickly.”
Will the cancelled E3 2022 happen on-line?
Earlier than the pandemic, E3 occurred in June on the LA Conference Centre, within the largest, in-person occasion of the gaming trade calendar. In 2020, because of the sudden impression of COVID-19, there was no E3 in any respect. Nevertheless, in a 12 months when many massive occasions have been moved on-line, E3 2021 went forward in a world on-line broadcast.
Some individuals are speculating that the assertion launched by ESA deliberately avoids mentioning a web-based occasion, suggesting that there will likely be no E3 in any respect in 2022. Whereas one other digital occasion is unsure, there isn’t any affirmation both manner because the announcement does solely verify that E3 “won’t be held in particular person in 2022”. The E3 web site doesn’t reveal a lot both, having not been up to date because the announcement, and nonetheless exhibits an E3 2022 emblem with a sign-up sheet for data on this 12 months’s occasion. As such, we are able to solely hope that E3 2022 will nonetheless go forward in a single kind or one other.
Picture through e3expo.
We’ll definitely be maintaining our ear to the bottom about this one. With the occasion scheduled in June yearly, exhibitors needs to be beginning to make preparations any day now. Hopefully, we’ll begin getting phrase on an online-only alternative in a matter of weeks.
If E3 2022 is cancelled, there’s all the time the Summer season of Video games interval, which characters like Geoff Keighley, and publications like IGN placed on exhibits in June, which is able to greater than possible occur once more in a web-based capability.
Featured picture through E3 on Twitter.