The ESA (Entertainment Software Association) has canceled this year’s E3 2022 in-person event. This means that the industry event will be fully online just like last year’s E3 2021. While the ESA brought up concerns with the recent Omicron COVID-19 variant as the main reason, some insider reports indicate that the trade group had actually made the decision as early as Fall 2021.
E3 2022 expo canceled, so what’s next?
Of course, when considering the increase in coronavirus cases in the US, the decision to cancel such a large-scale physical event like E3 2022 is understandable. However, as reported by IGN, several anonymous insider sources state that the ESA had actually decided to quietly cancel the in-person event portion of E3 2022 back in November 2021. This is backed by the fact that E3 2022 did not even appear on the Los Angeles Convention Center’s 2022 calendar. In the past, the ESA would typically book spots at the location at least a year in advance.
E3 has had a rocky history for some time now, and the global pandemic has only made things worse. From the leak that revealed the personal information of over 2,000 journalists and attendees in 2019, to the departure of show host Geoff Keighley and the Creative Directors at iam8bit, the list goes on. E3 has also been having somewhat of an identity crisis as of late, boasting of a “reimagined” event in 2021 while later backtracking on plans to paywall parts of the expo.
Even more worrying, the ESA has yet to confirm any details about the digital side of E3 2022. As if to rub salt into the wound, Keighley also confirmed that his own Summer Game Fest would return in 2022, just hours after E3’s cancellation announcement.
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) January 6, 2022
In other news, Sony recently revealed the PSVR 2 at the CES 2022 tech conference. It also announced Horizon Call of the Mountain, a PSVR 2 exclusive game from Guerilla Games, at the same event.
