We expected it, and it happened: this year E3, traditionally scheduled for June, will abandon its usual form of physical manifestation probably to become a digital event, responding to the current emergency situation.
This is what emerges from a report by Board of Los Angeles Convention and Tourism Development, a tourism promotion body of the city of Los Angeles, which illustrated the state of the events planned in the city during the year.
Here is a summary table of the report:
According to reports, the entity is working with ESA on an online event. Even if nothing is certain at the moment, it seems obvious that ESA does not want to give up the event for the second year in a row, preferring to resort to a well-established strategy such as the digital convention. Furthermore, the organization is also working with ESA for the 2022 and 2023 editions.
At this point it will be interesting to understand how E3 "digital" will be structured, if we find ourselves in front of it a unitary organization that will develop over the canonical three days or if it will be a cycle of events that will develop over several weeks, like the Summer Game Fest organized last year. We know that the Game Summer Fest-cycle of digital live broadcasts organized in synergy by the most important players in the sector to replace E3 2020- was confirmed. Now it remains to be seen whether the two events will marry or not.
Last year l'E3 was canceled around mid-March, in the midst of the first international wave of the pandemic, and towards the month of May replaced by replacement events such as the Summer Game Fest and the Summer of Gaming.
At this point we can only wait with curiosity for the details of the event, which will probably be released between April and May.
It will be certain a very special E3, with videogame production overwhelmed by the crisis and therefore an endemic difficulty in carrying out complex development processes, but we are sure that some surprises will not fail.
