December 7 is one of the most important days for the video game community: The Game Awards. Throughout this event the year’s best games were chosen, games got announced, and players got together. However, this event has a defining characteristic: it is online. The Game Awards and another online convention, Summer Games Fest, are some of America’s only major gaming conventions. However, older gamers remember the time of a different convention: E3.
The first E3 took place 28 years ago in May. E3 was an in-person event, where companies would buy out booths and display their new games or hardware to a live audience, or later, also viewers online. So it stayed for many years, and memories were made with unexpected moments such as the reveal of the Nintendo Wii.
However, the E3 website is now a singular page, saying that they will “re-evaluate the future of E3.” E3 had unexpectedly been canceled. Some believe that it was caused by the pandemic, which certainly played a role, but the true culprit was the internet.
One sign of change was in 2011, when Nintendo held their first Nintendo Direct. This was an online Nintendo showcase featuring their games and other developers’ games coming out on the Nintendo Switch. Before long, other gaming companies had their own event, allowing companies to hold their own events, at their own time. Suddenly the major producers had no need for E3.
Over the next ten years, E3 slowly fell apart, causing the rise of Summer Games Fest in 2020. It was created during the pandemic to take the mantle of E3 as a convenient, online event, drawing inspiration from founder Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards. In an interview by The Verge, Keighley described Summer Games Fest as, “A whole season of video game news and other surprises from the comfort of home.” The most prominent American gaming convention changed from E3 to Summer Games Fest.
So on December 7, millions of people watched the livestream of The Game Awards. There were shocking moments, and some surprises along the way. However, for many people, E3’s in-person events made an amazing impact on their lives that cannot be recaptured in an online “convention”.