E3 No More!

What's the r0 on that queuetainment?

Ding-dong, the witch is dead.
Which old witch?
The wicked witch.
Ding-dong the wicked witch is dead.

COVID-19 might have been what technically did it in, but I think it's safe to say the Electronic Entertainment Expo had some serious life-threatening conditions beforehand.  Aside from people only really remembering a surprise guest appearance by Keanu Reeves at the 2019 event, there was the simple fact that game developers were dropping out left and right:  Sony wasn't going to be there, Nintendo wasn't planning on showing up...heck, even Geoff Keighley (the face of gaming and host of the Game Award Show) declined to attend.  Then, there is the organizers of E3 that need to be considered.

The Entertainment Software Association (or ESA for short) has rightfully earned themselves a lot of consumer ire with regards to their handling of the loot box controversy.  Before the official cancellation was announced, the creative director of the event had just recently resigned for unclear reasons, although I have a feeling it had to do with the changes planed.  Namely, E3 was supposed to become, for the first time ever, an event open to the public.  Supposedly, the idea was to have lots of "influencers" show up (instead of the traditional mix of journalists, developers and publishers).  Then, after paying an exorbitant entry fee, bombard said individuals with advertisements pitched by B-list celebrities while waiting in line for hours to play some short game demo (or maybe even just watch someone more famous play it for them).  It sounded dull when it was first announced months ago, but now with nCoV on the rise it might well be outright deadly.  Of course, all this could be forgiven or overlooked if it weren't for the data leak.

Spilling the contact info for over 2,000 of last years attendees through gross negligence might sound like the kind of thing one should make amends for, but the ESA seems to think a token apology is all that is necessary.  They claim that the matter won't happen again, but the genie is out of the bottle...or maybe I should say the virus is out of the containment zone...