E3 2021 has been officially canceled, according to an LA City document

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COVID-19 strikes again. Like many events over the past 12 months, gaming conventions like E3 and BlizzCon were canceled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Well, it looks like that trend isn’t going to be changing any time soon.

According to a released LA City document, this year’s physical E3 gaming convention has been officially canceled.

Joining a long list of canceled events within LA city, it may come as no surprise that a live E3 isn’t happening this year. However, hopefully, there is a silver lining.

What’s next for E3?

The last time E3 happened was in 2019. Last year saw the convention being canceled during the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. This left many publishers on their own, and we saw many digital presentations and events from individual game companies. Many of those events even proved to be fairly successful.

So what does this mean for E3? The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the company that organizes the E3 convention, recently confirmed that this year’s convention will actually happen as a digital event. As stated in the document above, LA City is still working with the ESA on options for using one of the city’s facilities for the event.

While this is certainly a good start, there will still be something missing. One of the best things about E3, and other conventions for that matter, is getting your hands on new things and meeting others with similar interests.

The ESA is certainly aware of this hurdle. It will be interesting to see how they tackle this problem at this year’s E3 conference. Whether it is by getting demos from various publishers to be available alongside the event, or some other option, the ESA certainly has their hands full converting E3 2021 to a digital event.

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