Over the years, video game fairs have been atomized until leaving us with just a couple or three that are worth waiting for to be held. One is the Gamescom that takes place in Cologne, another is the famous Tokyo Game Show and, of course, the E3 in Los Angeles, which between the pandemic and that they do not agree on how to celebrate it, has disappeared from the map in this 2022 that already crosses its equator.
E3 in Los Angeles is back!
A few days ago the news broke that the ESA had come to confirm that in 2023 we will have a new edition of the famous E3 from Los Angeles and that, in a certain way, it would come to recover the format that it already had from years ago when the pandemic had not hit the world, mixing a lot of face-to-face but leaving a gap for online events that can be enjoyed all over the world. The person in charge of making this announcement was its executive director who, in statements to the Washington Postdid not hesitate to comment on how they see the return of the most important video game fair in the world.
But of course, that the body that organizes the fair says that E3 is going to return does not mean that something like this actually happens because, although it may not seem like it, the market for companies and the way of working has changed so much, that the same we find ourselves with a monumental fiasco that leaves the intentions in simple dead paper.
Thus, what must happen for E3 2023 in Los Angeles to return to where it used to be, turning the city of stars into a hive of activity focused only on video games?
How E3 2023 should return
No one doubts the ability of the ESA to take the Los Angeles exhibition center and put it at the service of the industry to fill its pavilions with stands and small stalls where video game creators seek to meet publishers or journalists who will later amplify their messages by the media around the planet. But another thing is that when the companies begin to take stock, confirm that traveling there the same does not compensate them, especially if it is only an image campaign.
Since 2020, the world has been closing agreements by videoconference, presenting video games online and meeting through Zoom, Teams or Google Meet, so make the enormous effort to transport dozens of people to Los Angeles It can be an expense that many do not want to assume. What’s more, before the pandemic, several greats stopped appearing on the streets of the Californian city and transformed their traditional (and expected) pre-E3 conferences into canned online events: there you have Nintendo and its Direct or Sony with the State of Play .
Only Microsoft seems determined to keep the tradition in the famous Galen Center, in addition to the fact that brands such as Bethesda or Activision that organized independent conferences at the fair continue to accumulate, so when they pass into the hands of those from Xbox, fewer interesting appointments are available. Another of the classics, Ubisoft, we are not very clear about the path it is taking, among rumors that it could be left wanting to be bought; or Electronic Arts, another of the big ones with its own event that is supposedly already in the process of being acquired (or so it tries to be) with several sleepless suitors. If these names do not organize conferences prior to the fair, what do we have left of a hypothetical E3 2023 face-to-face?
The only option left for the Los Angeles fair to stay from 2023 is that the companies that have participated up to five years ago come back: Nintendo and Sony above all, and if they do it with new rare and limited edition consoles, all the better. And they do so convinced that their presence is important for the good health of the industry and the millions of fans around the world who miss the old E3 coming back on its own. If not, we’ll go back to a decaf edition.
