The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Strategic decision · 2023
E3 drew 70,000 fans in 2005 and was axed in 2023 when studios left
The video-game expo that drew 70,000 fans in 2005 was permanently axed in 2023 after studios took their announcements home
E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) · Entertainment Software Association (ESA) · 2023
What happened
E3 began in 1995 as a Los Angeles trade show, just after the PlayStation launched. It grew into the industry's defining event — attendance peaked at 70,000 in 2005, and the last in-person show ran in 2019.
The pandemic cancelled the 2020 show; 2021 was online-only; 2022 was cancelled; and the 2023 edition — to have been run with events firm ReedPop, which parted ways with the ESA in September 2023 — was called off in March 2023.
The decline was structural: Nintendo, Ubisoft and Sony had begun launching games at their own in-house events. Analysts called those 'a cheaper, flexible, and more effective way to reach an audience and control the release of news'.
In December 2023 the Entertainment Software Association permanently closed E3: 'After more than two decades of E3, each one bigger than the last, the time has come to say goodbye. Thanks for the memories. GGWP.'
Why it happened
- The exhibitors left first: Nintendo, Ubisoft and Sony built their own showcases, and exclusive announcements were the only product E3 had.
- The event's function disappeared: when studios control their own release news, a middleman expo costs money and delivers nothing they cannot get elsewhere.
- The post-pandemic return never happened: 2021 online, 2022 and 2023 cancelled, ReedPop gone — E3 missed its window and never recovered momentum.
- The farewell was nostalgic, not strategic: ESA's 'GGWP' celebrated history, but no exhibitor had a reason to come back.
The lesson
An event whose value is exclusive announcements dies when the suppliers start selling direct: own showcases were cheaper, flexible, and left E3 nothing to mediate.
Sources
- BBC News | E3: Once world's biggest gaming show permanently axed
- GamesIndustry.biz | E3 officially abandoned by the ESA
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