What will Giant Bomb do without E3?!

WHAT WILL WE DO?! Will they do other things? No sell it? Im very concerned. Discuss.

At the rate the virus is spreading, I'm all for people not traveling.

I imagine it will become like any other week, with maybe a few extra shows/interviews thrown in. Unless there is a major outbreak in San Francisco/even worse one in NYC area that keeps them out of their normal offices. E3 is super fun, but so is regular GB. It's all good.

No E3 this year, but what about next year? What's crazy is this year was supposed to bring the hype for next gen. I'm wondering if even next gen will be delayed now. New consoles in early 2021?

Time for the inaugural Giant Bomb Ball Pit Royale!

It'd be really interesting, I mean they canceled a single James Bond film over worries it just wouldn't make enough money to be worth releasing at this time. Microsoft seems pretty full bore on coming out in a way that makes you wonder whether they're suffering from the same supply chain issues that have been reportedly giving Sony pause. We all know price point is the #1 factor for that second tier of early adopters, but if Microsoft has power, Game Pass and a quicker trigger finger that'd be a whole lot of interesting factors.

I have a lot of friends that went N64 / PS2 / 360 / PS4 and really have no loyalty to anything other than what their friends are going to play FIFA and the current shooter du jour on, and if Microsoft can just get out there first with Game Pass and a mean machine primarily because they were more prepared to talk pre-virus and weather the storm...I'm fascinated with all the ways this thing threatens to have an impact across all kinds of economies. Forget not having E3 for a year.

All that pointless speculation aside, Sony was never planning to go anyway, so I'm sure they're fully prepared to say what they were already preparing to say without E3's platform when the time comes. And since Microsoft owns that theater they do their E3 stuff at, maybe they still go and give their presentation and invite the fans along for the ride? I remember a pre-release event Sega held for the Dreamcast in Seattle while I was on vacation there, I got to play stuff like NBA and NFL 2K a few months before release and was telling all my friends how cool the Dreamcast was (luckily none of them listened and we all waited for the PS2 haha) and I think there'd be a lot of value / goodwill in something like that, virus permitting.

OK, enough with the damn speculation!

They can still talk over potentially everything in the comfort of their own home assuming that these press conferences will have some sort of streaming substitute so I will not worry too much. The Giant Bomb at Nite would be much more of an interesting problem to have especially since it is in the DNA of this site to pool together different industry personalities on the same couch and let them work their magic.

I am of the mind that the E3 tradition and hype-building still has a place in the gaming industry but I also want to be pleasantly surprised with how companies adapt and make the most out of it being cancelled. Maybe this would lead to something better than E3 and I'm all for that.

Assuming the GB staff could even work at their offices this coming summer, I would love to see the grand return of the BLLSL. Even if it's a lot of work to plan and execute it couldn't be nearly as bad as E3, could it? Worst case scenario is that they all have to work from home (ok, maybe there's a few much worse scenarios than that) and then I vote for Film & 40s over Skype all day every day. Or at least start to look over everyones home stream setups soon.

Two words: Game Tapes.

Sony and Nintendo are already set on not showing up, literally ahead of the game by not doing anything.

Microsoft, Bethesda, Ubisoft, and EA are the ones in question. In the case of EA and Bethesda this might actually give them an excuse to not have to show up empty handed. Ubi seems like they could weather the storm with their focus on service games and can have individual game specific announcements/streams. I think we will still see a big dump of trailers.

Microsoft is going to be very interesting...if the next xbox were to "fails to meet expectations" there would be a lot of speculations on if it is because Microsoft went from getting to dominating the E3 stage to having to deal with having the show pulled from right under them. Best case scenario they saw this as a possible outcome awhile back when COVID-19 became serious and started making different plans.

As for GB itself, that probably means watching Nintendo stream in the studio! Probably no more evening guests shows tho. This is going to be a very interesting take on old vs new video games coverage. In the past the crew have mentioned over and over E3 was when old coverage makes their bank, and as E3 starts to fade its importance and the budget around its coverage shrink. This is going to be an impromptu test run without E3.

That Seems to be the rallying cry. I would love it.

In the short term, get big Phil Spencer to announce the Xbox info via a Skype interview with Jeff.

Remember, even though the physical meeting has been cancelled, the internet is still a thing (at the moment!).

Past years have seen a number of companies' E3 press announcement events being a case of "press play on the video", just looks like this year will see that number reach 100%.

GB could still even do their "We talk over some reveal videos" content... with the big plus of their internet feed not dropping out at an inopportune moment as happens EVERY year.

Persona 5 Endurance Run: 16 hours a day over the course of 7 days.

God dammit, no E3 means no greenroom cam...which means no Lockdown...

FUCK YOU, CORONAVIRUS.

@shiftygism: Lockdown is always with you if you believe hard enough.

48 hours of burger time

Here you go, just leave it on in the background.

Only problem with some of these ideas is that the Beast crew won't be in studio for them.

yeah, i'll miss lockin it down with yall in the chat and the inevitable shenanigans.

but i gotta say- weird circumstances and unusual constrictions usually make for the best creative output.

case and point- this was friggin great.

I don't care too much about the E3 stuff itself. There will probably be some kind substitute for that. But without the incentive of E3 I doubt the East and west coast will end up getting together, and no late night after show with a large variety of guests. Those are the parts of E3 I most look forward to, and there's no easy replacement for that.

Now that E3 has been officially cancelled, it'll be interesting to see if Jeff was onto something with the comment about there not being another E3 after this. I think a few other reporters mentioned there being something deeper going on at the ESA that suggests that even if it does come back next year, the E3 we know is already dead and buried.

Congrats Big Jeffrey on outlasting E3.

@mindbullet I totally agree with there. I believe its definitely a major blow to the ESA that they will never be able to recover. I been to E3 for ten years and I felt that the value of the show been on a significant declined I hope the ESA take this time to really dissect their business model and figure out what market they want to focus on. IMO I would love to see a blend between PAX and GDC with a touch of TGS.

I think the virus would have to hit Atlus' lawyers first.

@evilmonkeyslayer: hearing this just makes me sad. I even took that week off to watch their streams uninterrupted. I guess it is the smart thing to do to.

Watching the presentations with the crew's reactions has always been the best part of E3 for me, so if they can still do that, just from the comfort of their own houses or the studio, then I'm good. Still, I guess their schedules for the summer just became a lot less busy, so I'm hoping we'll get some more streams and such.

Considering E3 2020 has now been officially cancelled, I'm just glad that people won't be put at risk going to E3. Nintendo will do their usual Nintendo Direct during E3, Microsoft already said they'll be announcing their plans for their Xbox reveal and Sony likely will do the same. It's for the best, to be honest. A lot of these events can be done online rather than at E3. I imagine the GB Crew will still have a Podcast via Skype to discuss everything and likely stream a few of them watching the different conference streams.

The big negative here is a lot of business deals and exposure for smaller studios is vital at events like E3. Considering GDC was also impacted, it's going to be tough for a lot of the smaller companies looking to conduct business at E3.

Wow kinda sad, hope they are able to stream stuff out to some extent.

I understand why E3 is cancelled, got to think of safety around this Corona situation. Hopefully the team can still do something around the time, i'm fully expecting developers to run digital events around June still.

THE RAID.

It's time. Build a green screen, CG lounging area and just video people in like the gang's all there.

Looks like it's time for Giant Bomb Con 2020...virtual, of course. Time to dust off those Second Life characters.

No E3 is going to feel real weird, it has been a highlight of my summer each year. Though that being said, I am sure most companies with news will find their own way to get them out there. Especially regarding consoles. As for GB, business as usual, unless they are all locked into their respective homes. Either way, better safe than sorry obviously.

@penguindust: Good! I just got my GB2020 virtual ticket, it comes with in game code for a Rorie Mount.

In all likely hood there is probably going to be several publishers and maybe platform holders with announcement reels to show off and we might soon hear about which streaming company will host the announcements and GB West(Maybe also East) will talk over those.

i hope everyone gets a chance to relax and chill.

@shindig said:

You know what? A marathon visit to the E3s of the past would be pretty nice in lieu of having an actual E3 this year.

Who remembers the PlayStation Home had a "virtual" show floor serveral years back. You could watch videos, take selfie photos with displays to ear 'points' and walks around a small space e3 space

A "virtual" show floor sounds like something that needs to come back. Without a double "virtualilized" conferences and show floors are the future.

I think Jeff is correct. This will be the last e3, or certainly the last e3 that was set up to work like e3 has since 1995. I think not having it this year will just prove to all the companies they can get away without it - they can get away without the expo hall for sure. The business of e3 will still happen just in a different way and maybe at a different time. The stage shows will all become prerecorded video streams we all watch from home or at the office.

I think e3 will go away, but two years later something smaller, tighter and more industry focused will take ist place IF IT IS NEEDED.

I think CBS and Giant Bomb need to invest in a space that is made for having a 'video conference interview'. GB needs something that easily integrates into Cisco, Polycom, Zoom and Skype fro Business systems. That way they can interview developers, marketers, and other staff from their office. Maybe have a way to edit such interview together like Space Ghost Coast to Coast.