2021 E3 Confirmed to be a Digital Event

After 2020’s E3 event was cancelled due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, the Entertainment Software Association has confirmed that E3 2021 is planned to happen as a digital event.  The event coordinators promised a “reimagined” virtual event for 2021 after a failed attempt at creating a virtual 2020 E3 Expo and it is now confirmed that the event will be happening via multiple news sources (although there has yet to be an official announcement).

Leaked documents sent to game publishers have the event three-day event scheduled to be live streamed June 15-17.  These dates are the previously scheduled dates of E3’s planned “Summer of Gaming” event that it was planning to put together earlier as a sort-of digital replacement for E3 during the pandemic.  We are unsure what will become of Summer of Gaming or if it and E3 will simply be one event.

The Entertainment Software Association seems to have the intention of working with publishers to push out demos and previews of games to gamers before and during the event to coordinate with the event.  The association also seems to have their eyes set on incorporating cloud gaming-based demos to work as the limited in-house demos that expo normally has.

There are some problems with these confirmations however, as Entertainment Software Association has not published that the expo has been voted on by its membership board.  This board consists of many of the industries largest publishers who have seen success in creating their own digital gaming focused events without E3 last year.  There is currently no information on who is interested in an E3 Expo in 2021 and the expo has certainly already been facing challenges with many large publishers (EA and Sony to name a few) already leaving the event before 2020’s virus pandemic even began.

Along with those problems, the ESA has yet to cancel a physical event even officially for 2021, making some worried that the event is not as focused or prepared as it may seem.  However, for now we have a lot to look forward to and can only hope that game publishers realize that a unified and independent event is great for the industry alongside the numerous independent events that many gamers struggle to keep up with.