Coronavirus leads to E3’s cancellation, plus SMITE and Pokemon Go postpone events

Update: The ESA has now made it official. We’ve included the press release at the end of this article.

If you thought it was strange that the ESA kept digging in its heels over keeping E3 up, when far smaller and less important events were closing down left and right to avoid exacerbating or exposing attendees to the novel coronavirus that’s terrorizing the globe, then today’s revelation that it’s finally been called off will mollify you. GIbiz and Ars Technica point to a cryptic tweet from Devolver Digital as well as unnamed sources who’ve confirmed that the massive games industry lobby is preparing to make the announcement. Here’s Ars:

“One source who spoke to Ars on background said they’d heard the news of E3 2020’s cancellation ‘directly from ESA members’ and that an official, public statement on the matter ‘was supposed to be today [Tuesday, March 10] and slipped.’ Representatives for the ESA did not immediately respond to Ars Technica’s questions about the state of E3 going forward or whether the event’s seismic shift may instead mean a delay, a move to a completely different venue, or a wholly virtualized, live-streamed event.”

Last week, the company in charge of the convention’s creative direction resigned, which seemed to herald the move whether ESA felt it could afford to make it or not. Thus far, however, neither the organization nor the official E3 accounts have made the formal statement; the last update was from March 4th when the ESA said it was still monitoring the situation in LA. (We’ll update when they do.)

Meanwhile, we’ve seen closures of several other gaming events just in the last few days, adding to all the others in previous weeks: The SMITE Pro League Season Kickoff has been delayed at least three weeks, while Niantic has postponed Pokemon Go’s Safari Zone St. Louis, granting players refunds, and suggesting the event will be back in the next year.

News reports as of this morning suggest the virus has infected over 115,000 people, 1000 out those in the US, with 4200 deaths globally and little respite in sight.

More on the impact of the virus on gaming:

• Apr 3: For Science: EVE Online’s Project Discovery initiative opens signups for mobile testing

• Feb 19: Wisdom of Nym: How long until Final Fantasy XIV’s next expansion based on patch 6.57?

• Dec 22: Guild Wars 2’s ArenaNet is working on expansions for both 2024 and 2025 already

• Oct 13: WoW Factor: No-selling BlizzCon

• Sep 18: Ubisoft Montreal employees accuse studio of lying about work-from-home policies as an RTO mandate begins

• Aug 9: Following Final Fantasy XIV Fanfest COVID outbreak, one fan admits guilt – in a comic

• Jul 19: Activision-Blizzard Q2 2023: Diablo IV doubled Blizzard’s revenues as MAUs continue decline

• Jul 4: Massively Uplifting: Spring and summer philanthropy and farewells in MMOs

• Apr 26: Activision-Blizzard Q1 2023: ABK revenues are up as Blizzard MAUs fall back down to reality

• These are just our last few articles; click here for the full roundup of our coronavirus coverage back to January

MOP's been covering the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on online gaming since January 2020, and we're still going from behind our own quarantines, both to keep up with the news and be a source of entertainment and comfort too. Stay abreast of the big MMO impacts with us, but please be safe and care for your communities above all else.