E3 is officially, permanently dead. After 26 events spread across nearly 29 years, the Entertainment Software Association has confirmed that it's no longer going to run what was once the biggest show in gaming. For decades, E3 was the nexus of gaming news, the place where publishers and developers big and small would gather to announce their games and demonstrate them to the media, the industry, and the world.
The annual show gathered attention like nothing else in gaming, from the early days where fans had to read about the news in magazines to the era of low-quality trailer downloads and finally into the age where every press conference was broadcast in its full high definition glory for everyone to see. With the world watching, E3 hosted some of the most famous – and infamous – moments in the history of the gaming industry, and there's no better time to look back than right now, as we mourn the convention's passing.
