It doesn’t look like E3 will be returning anytime soon, as a new document from the Los Angeles City Tourism Commission claims that both E3 2024 and E3 2025 have been canceled.
For over 20 years, the Entertainment Software Association held an event called E3 each June, where companies from around the video game industry would come together and show off their upcoming games. It got canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and the ESA took 2022 off after a rough digital-only show in 2021. The expo was set to return in 2023, but was canceled in March after Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft, and other game companies pulled out of the event. E3’s future was put into question after that, and now it looks like it’s not coming back for the foreseeable future.
This didn’t come as an official announcement from the ESA; it was a footnote in the June 21 meeting notes from the City Tourism Commission in Los Angeles, the city in which E3 was typically held. On a page outlining year-to-date citywide convention sales for this fiscal year, a footnote at the bottom of the page states that its calculation for this “includes E3 cancellations for 2024 & 2025.”
As the ESA has not commented on the future of E3 since E3 2023’s cancellation, this definitely comes as a surprise. We contacted the ESA to confirm that the Los Angeles City Tourism Commission’s claim was accurate and will update this article when we get a response.
While it sadly appears that E3 won’t return for at least the next two years, the industry has moved on from it. Video game developers and publishers now hold lots of digital game showcases, and those who are fans of in-person events can look forward to the return of Summer Game Fest and its associated Play Days event next June.
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