E3 2023 Is Canceled

E3 2023 has been canceled, an official statement by the ESA and ReedPop confirms. The event had been scheduled to take place June 13-16 in Los Angeles.

"This was a difficult decision because of all the effort we and our partners put toward making this event happen, but we had to do what's right for the industry and what’s right for E3," said ReedPop's Kyle Marsden-Kish in a statement shared with GameSpot. "We appreciate and understand that interested companies wouldn't have playable demos ready and that resourcing challenges made being at E3 this summer an obstacle they couldn’t overcome. For those who did commit to E3 2023, we're sorry we can’t put on the showcase you deserve and that you’ve come to expect from ReedPop’s event experiences."

The info first leaked via an email sent by the ESA to its members and obtained by IGN. E3 "simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary to execute it in a way that would showcase the size, strength, and impact of our industry," the message said.

In the statement to GameSpot, ReedPop also confirmed that digital showcases scheduled around E3 will still take place; those include Summer Game Fest and Xbox and Bethesda showcases. The company also said that it will continue to work with the ESA on future E3 events, suggesting that though E3 2023 is canceled, this is not the end for the iconic industry event. E3 could possibly appear again in future years.

E3's cancellation follows after months of rumors around the state of the event. Multiple major publishers, like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, announced that they would skip the event. Ubisoft also recently said it was pulling out of E3 to hold its own digital event, Ubisoft Forward in June. In tandem with news of companies pulling out, there were also reports of industry members not being sure who was attending E3 and feeling frustrated by the lack of communication with ReedPop and ESA.