I remember my first exposure to the E3 Expo. It was not so much by checking in on the news sites or a live stream, but it was through randomly picking up a DVD copy of E3 Access 2005 in a not-so-local EB Games store. Back in the era where internet speeds were wonky and I was still building upon my knowledge of games outside the Nintendo bubble, it was a cornucopia of trailers, previews and much more that saw me following up the event more and more as the years went by.
However, after so many years of being a flagship event, the E3 Expo began to dwindle, from the uncontrollable complications that arouse around the COVID-19 pandemic to even earlier with some console manufacturers and publishers favouring their own self-hosted events, or even just doing their own thing at a later date.
Now in December 2023, it has been officially announced that E3 2023 is no more.
E3 Expo
While I have been hearing things like The Game Awards being “Winter E3”, ultimately this is a loss for the industry as a whole, however with the prevalence of online connectivity and the ease of publishers being able to make announcements with their own scheduling and on their own dime, it doesn’t surprise me too much that E3 has served its purpose.