ESA says E3, scheduled for early June as a three-day event, has been canceled due to COVID-19 concerns
The biggest trade show in video games is skipping a year. Michael Kan / PCMag : 2 Attendees at Last Month's RSA Cybersecurity Show Now Have Coronavirus Stephany Nunneley / VG247 : With E3 2020 canceled Nintendo is looking into other ways to keep fans up to date Chris Moyse / Destructoid : Following E3 cancellation, Microsoft and Ubisoft are looking into ‘digital events’ Jasmine Henry / CCN.com : E3 2020 Cancellation Destroys Warner Bros.' Batman Plans Gerald Lynch / TechRadar.com : Why E3 2020 being cancelled may actually be good news for game developers Shubhankar Parijat / GamingBolt : Devolver Digital Plans on Having a Livestream Event in Place of E3 2020 Press Conference Rik Henderson / Pocket-lint : Xbox, Ubisoft, Nintendo and others respond to E3 2020 cancellation saying business as usual Paul Cotton / dexerto.com : Could Pokemon Go's March Community Day be canceled due to Coronavirus? Tyler Lee / Ubergizmo : E3 2020 Has Been Cancelled Over Coronavirus Concerns Cosmin Vasile / Softpedia News : E3 2020 Canceled Over Coronavirus Fears Richard Priday / Tom's Guide : Xbox Series X digital event announced to fill the E3 2020 void Ethan Gach / Kotaku : Microsoft, Nintendo, Ubisoft Respond To The News Of E3's Cancellation Cheyenne MacDonald / Input : E3 has been canceled over coronavirus; ESA looks to ‘online experiences’ instead Todd Spangler / Variety : E3 2020 Canceled After ‘Overwhelming Concerns’ About Coronavirus Asher Madan / Windows Central : Warner Bros. wanted to reveal new Batman and Harry Potter games at E3 Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat : E3 2020 cancellation: Game industry reacts to physical vs. digital marketing Cohen Coberly / TechSpot : Microsoft and Ubisoft will hold digital events following E3 2020's cancelation Tyler Treese / Digital Trends : Game companies scramble to make new plans after coronavirus cancels E3 Mathew Olson / USgamer.net : Nintendo on E3 2020: “Large Industry Events May Be Untenable for the Foreseeable Future” Gabe Gurwin / GameSpot : E3 2021 Is Still Happening Next Year Brad Chacos / PCWorld : E3 2020 is canceled, the latest event to be affected by COVID-19 Alessio Palumbo / Wccftech : Ubisoft Now Looking Into ‘Digital Experience Option’ Post E3 Cancellation Heidi Nicholas / TrueAchievements : Microsoft is planning a digital Xbox event in place of E3 Pulasthi Ariyasinghe / Neowin : Report: Warner Bros. planned an E3 briefing for Harry Potter, Batman, and more games Jennifer Locke / iMore : Ubisoft may host a digital E3 conference in wake of E3's cancellation Tweets: Phil Spencer / @xboxp3 : E3 has always been an important moment for Team Xbox. Given this decision, this year we'll celebrate the next generation of gaming with the @Xbox community and all who love to play via an Xbox digital event. Details on timing and more in the coming weeks https://www.theesa.com/... @ubisoft : An update regarding E3 2020. https://twitter.com/... @devolverdigital : Cancel your E3 flights and hotels, y'all. Jason Schreier / @jasonschreier : More news from me: Warner Bros. Games was planning to do an E3 press conference this year for the first time, to talk about Batman, Harry Potter, and Rocksteady's game among others. Remains to be seen what they'll do now https://kotaku.com/... @exabeam : We recently learned and are saddened to share that two of our employees have tested positive for Coronavirus (COVID-19). Please be vigilant in monitoring yourself for symptoms and following guidelines to prevent possible infection. Our thoughts are with our colleagues. https://twitter.com/... @ign : In its official statement on E3 2020's cancellation, the Entertainment Software Association says it's exploring options to coordinate “an online experience to showcase industry announcements and news in June 2020.” https://www.ign.com/... https://twitter.com/... Yoshinori Ono / @yoshi_onochin : Its unfortunate,but it can't be avoided. It was way beyond our imagination.I look forward to meetingWorldWarriors/FGC at some event in some future.This is tougher than I thought about #CPT2020 /otherFTGevents.We'll do our best to live up to ur expectations https://www.theesa.com/... Cindy Walker / @lilcin3 : No E3 this year - of all years - is a TOTAL bummer. But our #XSX campaign so far has been about being bold and trying new things so we will be tackling this new curveball with that same attitude - which means plenty of new ideas and great things ahead! #xbox #ForTheFans https://twitter.com/... Jamie Moran / @jamiemoranuk : Health comes first. I'll look forward to the Digital Event 🙂 https://twitter.com/... Brad Sams / @bdsams : Now do CES https://twitter.com/... @aarongreenberg : Bummed to miss celebrating @E3 in person with all of our fans, media, and partners. With that said we have an incredible amount of exciting things in the works and team is going to continue to work hard to share all of that with you in a digital format. The Xbox show must go on! https://twitter.com/... Katsuhiro Harada / @harada_tekken : Wow...For the first time in about 10 or more years, I will spend my June 10 birthday in Japan, not Los Angeles. E3中止か、 6月10日誕.日 を日本で迎 ; えるのは一 ; 体何年ぶり ; になるんだ ; ・・・ — E3 2020 Officially Canceled https://www.gamespot.com/... Guy ‘Yug’ Blomberg / @yugstar : E3 cancelled 😳 This is such an unprecedented and wild time to be working in the gaming events industry. https://twitter.com/... Robert Bowling / @fourzerotwo : No E3 2020. Time to go back to finding out about new game releases the old way — from your friend who has an uncle who “works at Nintendo” and said Ocarina of Time 2 is coming to PlayStation. https://twitter.com/... @business : The coronavirus outbreak has scuppered E3, the world's biggest video games show slated for June https://www.bloomberg.com/... Vlad Magdalin / @callmevlad : ~40,000 (mostly out of town) attendees were at the RSA conference in downtown San Francisco two weeks ago. Now there are multiple cases that are traced back to that event... reinforces the point of maximum social distancing, since it's been spreading for weeks mostly silently. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This was the first cancellation in E3's run as the industry's central trade show, an event dating back to 1995, and it came as COVID-19 was already disrupting conferences — attendees at last month's RSA cybersecurity show were linked to multiple cases. The ESA had no playbook: within days, exhibitors were improvising replacements on their own.
What makes this data point worth tracking is how the workaround hardened into a habit. The ESA tried a digital-only E3 2022, then scrapped even that with no replacement, and by 2023 Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and Ubisoft simply declined to attend at all — before the ESA finally shut down E3 entirely that December.
First-order effects
- Microsoft, Ubisoft, Nintendo, and Devolver Digital each pivot to their own digital broadcasts within days of the cancellation — Microsoft planning an Xbox Series X event, Ubisoft exploring an E3-style conference, Devolver moving its press conference to a livestream.
- Warner Bros. Games loses its planned stage for Batman and Harry Potter announcements, forcing those reveals into unplanned channels.
Second-order effects
- Publishers discover they can reach fans directly without paying for booth space and stage time, weakening the leverage the ESA's show floor held over them — a dependence that never recovered, as shown when the same four publishers sat out E3 2023 and forced its cancellation.
- Other large gatherings face the same exposure math: the RSA cluster shows any dense indoor event now carries health liability, pushing organizers toward virtual formats or smaller audiences.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the industry's marketing calendar reorganizes around publisher-owned streaming showcases rather than a shared neutral venue — exactly the dynamic of competitor events, partner withdrawals, and changed audience habits the ESA cited when it ended E3 for good.
- Trade associations lose their role as gatekeepers of launch timing; announcement power shifts permanently to whoever owns the audience relationship, and mid-size studios without direct channels are the ones left scrambling.
The trend: Physical mega-trade-shows are being replaced by publisher-controlled digital showcases, with COVID-19 as the accelerant and the ESA's eventual shutdown of E3 as the endpoint.