The problem stems from how the last three months (and the past event, too) have been building up to this point for both E3 and the ESA.
Even before the Coronavirus started to spread outside to begin with, we have an organization that didn't do their due diligence and basically went open season on the private information of thousands of industry people who went to the event last year. I know some people play that down as "not a big deal," but if you're the main organizers running one of the biggest events in the gaming industry, and in an age where drastic mistakes like that won't be forgotten on the internet, yeah I'd be pretty pissed and wouldn't forget about that, too.
Then came the whispers and leaks of how this year's show was going to turn out, being more so a "influencer-led festival" than a trade show, which led into various people leaving the event as a whole; Sony leaving again for the second time in a row is one thing, but people like Geoff Keighley and iam8bit,
which were their Creative Directors for making their entire show floors mind you, then leaving? Three months near the event no less? That should've already raised some massive red flags to begin with. The Coronavirus literally was the "get out of jail free card" for lots of people and cherry on top.
This year essentially will decide E3's future. Basically every company who isn't Nintendo (and to an extent, Sony and Devolver Digital) now has to try their hand at the Nintendo Direct-format. Already we've seen it work out for Nintendo in spades, and Sony I think knows this now by just not going there for the second year in a row. But what about the other companies? If they happen to see that this works out for them and saves them a whole lot of money, then what's the incentive to even go again and spend
tens of millions of dollars to just have a piece of the show floor and conference? This unfortunately isn't just some "thought within gamers minds", this literally is on the minds of lots of people within the industry.
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This also doesn't help in the ESA's case considering E3 basically is their biggest money maker and about 50% of their revenue. I'm glad that they're doing refunds, but those refunds are going to be
pricey. While I do think there are other venues like Tokyo Game Show, Gamescom or even The Game Awards to have networking, no doubt this will also not help the smaller developers who will lose out on a pretty big crosswalk between them and the big guys. Most notably a good example of what would be the Starlink devs and the Nintendo crossover and a good chance for Banjo & Kazooie's starting talks for Smash Ultimate.
I really do hope come next year a good amount of the industry bounces back from this and we happen to have events such as SXSW and E3 come back, but in the case for this, I wouldn't put it past people who think this is it for E3 and don't expect anything for the upcoming years. Right now, though, the only company who is "lucky" enough is Nintendo and probably plans for their Direct in June won't change, much like the March 26th Nintendo Direct, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're probably crunching right now alongside basically everyone and the ESA, scrambling and figure out a game plan since we're
three months to go for any supposed plans.