8 Video Game Leaks That Changed EVERYTHING
5. The ESA Data Leak
Though E3 was once upon a time an ultra-exciting annual showcase for the next year's most anticipated games, the convention began its calamitous decline following its 2019 edition.
In August 2019, it was discovered that the website of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) - the company behind E3 - contained unsecured personal information of more than 2,000 press and influencers who attended the event, leaving them open to harassment from malicious parties.
Though the ESA removed the data, further data of 6,000 attendees from prior E3s was then discovered and also scrubbed by the ESA.
But this data leak marked a huge change in perception of E3 as an event - with some members of the press reporting unwanted phone calls and even death threats, distrust in E3 and the ESA was at an all-time high.
And this was really the beginning of the end for the show - after E3 2020 didn't go ahead because of the pandemic, the virtual-only E3 2021 edition was largely panned, E3 2022, 2023, and 2024 were cancelled amid dwindling publisher interest, and then the ESA finally announced that E3 was no more.
While E3 would've always struggled to regain its footing following the pandemic, the massive reputation hit it took from the data leak meant that industry support for it was basically in the toilet, hammering one very large nail in its coffin in the process.
Much as many miss the pageantry and splashy spectacle of E3 compared to its so-so replacement Summer Games Fest, the ESA mostly has themselves to blame for its demise.