The Entertainment Software Association announced that E3 2021 is taking place this year, and may be going digital, according to Video Games Chronicle. The event will be held from June 15th to 17th.
“We can confirm that we are transforming the E3 experience for 2021,” said an ESA spokesman The Verge. “And we will soon be sharing exact details on how we are uniting the global video game community.”
According Video Games Chronicle, ESA outlined its plans for E3 2021, with the intention of holding several main two-hour gaming partner sessions, an award show, a preview night on June 14, as well as some small streams from various game publishers , influencers and media partners.
Video Games Chronicle also notes that ESA’s draft proposes that the broadcast event be supplemented by media previews the previous week, and game demos scheduled to appear at the event would be launched on consumer platforms. ESA would also allow partner companies to remotely broadcast game demos to the media in “thousands” of scheduled meetings.
Although the whole plan seems ambitious, it still requires the approval of ESA members, which is comprised of some of the largest companies in the sector, which also have significant influence on the structure of the event. Traditionally, E3 has been one of the biggest weeks in the gaming industry, with the event featuring some of the biggest announcements of the year. However, in recent years, ESA has faced pressure to redefine E3, as major publishers, such as Sony, have chosen to skip the event entirely in favor of hosting their own events in the week in which E3 is normally held. After E3 was canceled, many digital events were held to fill the void, most notably the Summer Games Fest organized by industry veteran Geoff Keighley.
This is the first time that ESA has conducted E3 after the organization canceled E3 2020 due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic. But E3 is not the only event that plans to go digital this year due to the pandemic; Activision Blizzard plans to host a BlizzCon online only from February 19th to 20th.