By The letter “E” and number “3” hung over the escalators at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. | Photo: The Verge
The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is dead. Following cancellations in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and Thursday’s revelation that it won’t return to Los Angeles in 2024 or 2025 either, you can safely stick a fork in the world’s former most influential gaming show. It’s done, replaced by events that stream online like the Summer Game Fest, Nintendo Direct, PlayStation Showcase, Xbox Games Showcase, and Ubisoft Forward.
But given how seemingly easily it’s been replaced, you might be wondering: how big a deal was it, really?
In 2016, I wrote for CNET how it was actually becoming less of a gamer’s mecca every year, and you aren’t really missing that much. But when I ran the numbers today, they told a slightly different story — E3 had…