Is E3 going to disappear ?
E3 another COVID-19 victim.
E3 is one of the most anticipated events for gaming and that is no lie, every year thousands of people gather to witness the biggest companies make their upcoming year's announcements for games and some lucky times, new consoles.
This year was no surprise and actually highly expected since AAA title companies like Sony and Microsoft are planning to release more details about their new console's system that are currently in development. The PS5 and Xbox series X are dragging all gamer's attention as usual even with the current world situation due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak.
Attendance has declined over the past years at the convention, but little has been the impact on actual game sales, if anything sales kept the same level as expected for these two companies even with Sony doing their presentations via online streams. And taking into consideration the sales factor, is now more a more likely for us to see a more digital oriented convention.
Let's take some facts into consideration, Digital presentations means: less money spent on actually setting up the stage, savings in logistics and transportation, and of course some decent time for testing the demos. These and more are the reasons why those big companies are taking such decisions; they will not spend money on what isn't a deal breaker for their sales performance.
Now taking into consideration that attendance at the event has significantly been going down on recent years and with the transition on games going for a more digital approach, with companies like Sony completely dropping of the whole convention performing a live presentation via streaming only, we can start to see a very clear tendency.
“PlayStation fans mean the world to us and we always want to innovate, think differently and experiment with new ways to delight gamers. As a result, we have decided not to participate in E3 in 2019. We are exploring new and familiar ways to engage our community in 2019 and can’t wait to share our plans with you.” Sony said in a very clear statement, they are not afraid of trying new and different methods for their marketing, and at least for this old gamer, it's truly appreciated companies that still truly care about the all mighty, customer experience.
With retail stores closing, big companies doing presentations that actually manage to impact the audience, without even having to attend the event and still performing a solid conference, E3 should be stepping up their game at least on were the trend is going and that is definitely digital streaming formats. E3 needs to break the industry with a revolutionary concept to keep major companies interested in presenting their games at these conventions.
Now with social distancing rules in place cancelling all major events around the world we also find workplaces closing down as well. Collaboration tools such as Slack have a major role in companies working from home, we'll see in the upcoming months what have been the effects on all development teams, most likely we'll be seen delays on most game announcements, at least more of the usual 6 - 12 month push. In regular circumstances these games get delays all the time anyways, just don't be surprised that COVID-19 will be all over the place for all sorts of delays.
At least for big AAA title companies, this, besides being a challenging time, it is also coincidentally a good time to test their digital marketing strategies, and the impact of their conferences if any.
In this desperate times, let's wish for the best for this major event and hopefully we'll see the best of E3 back on 2021.
Will 2020 be digital only? Most likely.
Is E3 going "digital only" for the upcoming conventions? The tendency is there but only time will tell, this is Josh, signing out.
About the Creator
Joshua Corona
An ‘allegedly’ prolific Mexican writer.
I have an urge to share my mind. Hope you don't mind.
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