E3 was king in the age before widespread social media marketing campaigns. You’d go to those shows to showcase everything to the media to generate hype at one of the biggest events of the year. Those journalists would then go back and write all about it, giving the upcoming projects hype and attention.

Now with social media it’s more effective for brands to run their own campaigns. You can spend millions on an E3 presentation or you can give streamers/YouTubers review copies for free and get a ton of good press.

Once the big companies pulled out it became a lot less attractive to go, then the pandemic seems to have put the final nail in the coffin.