How The Death Of E3 Changes Gaming Forever

The reduced prominence of E3 isn’t purely marketing based, as it also presents a tangible change to game development.

Each year, we would see Microsoft, Nintendo, Sega, Square Enix, Bethesda, Sony, Ubisoft and many more rush to finalise new trailers and gameplay demos in preparation for the event.

It would cause delays by taking away development time from the rest of a game, focusing on finishing up trailers or specific gameplay segments for demo purposes.

It cannot be understated how much a first impression brings to players and it's understandable they'd want to ensure it's as polished as realistically possible. But this approach creates strict deadlines, often resulting in large scale overtime (Otherwise known as crunch) to meet these goals with the aim of being presentation ready and imposes a lot of stress on developers.

It's an issue that's gained increasing attention in recent years, where more developers such as Rockstar and CD Projekt Red have come under fire for imposing this overtime on staff members.

Whilst the situation is likely to remain the same under other publishers, Sony's decision to back out means this E3 deadline is no longer a factor for them, but whether this leads to any tangible change or if this just means deadlines for other events is yet to be seen.