Like the video game with three finals, or the final fight against the boss that never ends, E3 refuses to die. Now the world of video game events is doubling. ReedPop, organizers of PAX, New York Comic Con and Star Wars Celebration, announced Thursday that it will take over the planning of the annual summer game showcase and relaunch it with a “back to shape” in 2023. movement raises bets on an upcoming showdown with rival Summer Game Fest event hosted by Game Awards host Geoff Keighley.
E3’s new planners present “exclusive access to the future of gaming” to the revised event and say the event will bring back publishers, developers, journalists, content creators, manufacturers, buyers and licensors, while highlighting digital display cases and will include “in – person consumer components.
“For years, we’ve listened, listened to and studied the comments of the global gaming community,” Kyle Marsden-Kish, global vice president of gaming at ReedPop in charge of the event, said in a press release. “E3 2023 will be recognizably epic: a return to form that honors what has always worked, while reshaping what didn’t work and setting a new benchmark for video game exhibitions in 2023 and beyond.”
We’re back! 👾 # E32023 will take place in June at the Los Angeles Convention Center, with new partner ReedPop (the people behind @PAX!)
More information: pic.twitter.com/MdW00Qekeg
– E3 (@ E3) July 7, 2022
E3 has not taken place as a live event since the global pandemic began in early 2020. It returned as a digital-only event in 2021, but then was MIA again last June. Instead, the void was filled with Geoff Keighley’s online Summer Game Fest showcase, which also hosted an in-person “Play Days” event for media, developers and influencers, in downtown LA, near ‘where E3 would normally have been held.
Traditionally, a big week-long gaming news event kicked off by Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft’s major showcases, E3 has stumbled in recent years as big gamers have retired and opted to offer ads on their own terms through blog posts and live broadcasts. Keighley, who used to host the E3 Coliseum, broke up loudly with the event before it was canceled in 2020, criticizing its planning on departure. Keighley was then refused to jointly broadcast the events of the E3 brand in its digital-only return in 2021. At the end of its presentation of the Summer Game Fest last month, it announced that the event would return the next year, a subtle shot at E3 that at the time had not yet announced any solid plans.
As we announced in June, @SummerGameFest will return in June 2023 as a free digital and face-to-face event to celebrate the future of video games, bringing our entire industry together to show what’s to come. pic.twitter.com/cOUHJ9VLtA
– Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) July 7, 2022
But E3 had problems even before that, as the number of publishers and studios attending declined greatly over time. The event was also open to the general public during this time, but without offering the kind of fan experiences for which gaming conventions such as GamesCom and PAX have been known. Then, in 2019, the event accidentally provoked more than 2,000 journalists who had previously attended.
E3’s new planners promise a “streamlined and secure media record” this time around, with new information on who will actually attend the event in the coming months. In addition to making E3 relevant again, ReedPop will also have its work to do in terms of public safety in the era of the “eternal plague”. A PAX East agent died earlier this year after taking covid after the event.
Most recently, the LA Convention Center where E3 2023 will be held hosted the Anime Expo 2022. Event organizers originally tried to loosen covid security restrictions last month before fan reaction forced them to reverse gear in changes. On July 1, the event was so crowded that the Fire Marshall building began to alienate attendees.