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E3 returns for 2021 with an online show June 12-15After last year’s show was binned due to the pandemic
After last year’s show was binned due to the pandemic
After skipping last year due to the pandemic, E3 will officially return in 2021 with a free online show running June 12-15th. The organisers say to expect participants including Microsoft, Ubisoft, Take-Two, and Nintendo. E3 is the biggest marketing event on the games industry’s calendar but last year its organisers didn’t arrange an online replacement after the pandemic ruled out an in-person show, leading to a weeks-long sprawl of unaffiliated alternatives from publishers and the media. I never thought I’d say it but: I missed E3. Please save us from the endless NotE3.
Today’sannouncementsays yep, live press conferences are back with the four-day stream. It also notes that E3 2021 “will be a reimagined and hyper-engaged digital experience,” so it’s good to see they’ve not lost that E3 flair for fancy words which reveal nothing. A press release adds that they have “early commitments from Nintendo, Xbox, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, Warner Bros. Games and Koch Media,” and expect more.
“For more than two decades, E3 has been the premier venue to showcase the best that the video game industry has to offer, while uniting the world through games,” said Stanley Pierre-Louis, the president of the Entertainment Software Association. “We are evolving this year’s E3 into a more inclusive event, but will still look to excite the fans with major reveals and insider opportunities that make this event the indispensable center stage for video games.”
The Quiet I.T. Guy | Mystery Steam Reviews (Video Games With A Silent Protagonist)Watch on YouTube
The Quiet I.T. Guy | Mystery Steam Reviews (Video Games With A Silent Protagonist)
The ESA add that they “[look] forward to coming back together to celebrate E3 2022 in person.” Sounds more like a hope than a commitment to me.
Sure, E3 is a big blast of marketing, but marketing is going to happen anyway. And I’ll definitely take a four-day marketing event over months of marketing events which show largely the same games and trailers. The NotE3 replacement events were impressive accomplishments, especially given the timescales they were organised on, but as a whole they were too much for me. NotE3 was too long and spread too thin. E3 is fun partially because it sweeps me up with four days of loud noises and bright colours, then vanishes like a cursed carnival leaving only tattered posters drifting on the wind.
