7 Ups & 4 Downs For Gaming In 2020 (So Far)

2. Every Company's E3 Plans Becoming Livestreams

Let's be honest, E3 hasn't been E3 for quite some time.

Too many CG trailers over gameplay footage, too many broken stage demos when they do happen. Far too much bloat, mass market pandering and not enough direct information for the people that watch the show in the first place: Gamers.

Once the ESA's plans leaked and showed the top brass were only concerned with "influencers", "cashing in social chits", creating "queue-tainment" and all sorts of other godawful terminology around hashtag gamers, the coffin nails were inserting themselves.

Strangely though, the ongoing global situation forcing everyone to reevaluate their production budgets led to one hell of a silver lining:

All the major conferences we were going to get can now be livestreams. No marketing guff, no pomp or circumstance.

IGN launched the Summer of Gaming - to which they've had announcements every single day throughout June - Geoff Keighley is then taking over with Summer Game Fest across July and August, and in between we've had everyone from EA to CD Projekt RED getting involved, with many more alongside.

Is this the future of conferences and mass exposure to trailers and reveals? Who knows.

E3 2021 is still planned, but if there's one thing we'll never forget from this abundance of downtime, it's...