E3 2022 cancelled: ESA confirms in-person event will not go ahead
The biggest annual event in gaming is cancelled for the third year in a row
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ESA, the organisers of the huge video game industry event E3 – the Electronic Entertainment Expo – officially confirmed that an in-person E3 2022 has been cancelled for the third year in a row due to the ongoing COVID pandemic.
In a statement released on the ESA’s website, the company confirmed that they would not be holding the in-person event following its cancellation in both 2020 and 2021. The statement reads, “Due to the ongoing health risks surrounding COVID-19 and its potential impact on the safety of exhibitors and attendees, E3 will not be held in person in 2022. We remain incredibly excited about the future of E3 and look forward to announcing more details soon.”
Will the cancelled E3 2022 take place online?
Before the pandemic, E3 took place in June at the LA Convention Centre, in the biggest, in-person event of the gaming industry calendar. In 2020, due to the sudden impact of COVID-19, there was no E3 at all. However, in a year when many large events were moved online, E3 2021 went ahead in a global online broadcast.
Some people are speculating that the statement released by ESA intentionally avoids mentioning an online event, suggesting that there will be no E3 at all in 2022. While another digital event is uncertain, there is no confirmation either way as the announcement does only confirm that E3 “will not be held in person in 2022”. The E3 website doesn’t reveal much either, having not been updated since the announcement, and still shows an E3 2022 logo with a sign-up sheet for information on this year’s event. As such, we can only hope that E3 2022 will still go ahead in one form or another.
We’ll certainly be keeping our ear to the ground about this one. With the event scheduled in June every year, exhibitors should be starting to make preparations any day now. Hopefully, we’ll start getting word on an online-only replacement in a matter of weeks.
If E3 2022 is cancelled, there’s always the Summer of Games period, which characters like Geoff Keighley, and publications like IGN put on shows in June, which will more than likely happen again in an online capacity.
Featured image via E3 on Twitter.
