Pete Hines has just announced that Bethesda will not be hosting a digital Showcase this June to replace their E3 press conference. However, he did say that there will be "lots of exciting things to share about our games and look forward to telling you more in the coming months", so at least we have that going for us.
Bethesda's latest release was Doom Eternal, which TechRaptor really liked, along with everyone else that has a pulse and likes to destroy demons with extreme prejudice.
Below is the tweet for posterity:
Given the many challenges we're facing due to the pandemic, we will not host a digital Showcase in June. We have lots of exciting things to share about our games and look forward to telling you more in the coming months.
— Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) April 1, 2020
Preparing demonstration material for these events can take teams a significant amount of time, and with everyone's productivity being impacted due to work from home and other schedule changes, they don't seem to believe it worthwhile (or even possible) to continue with the event.
Bethesda isn't the first to cancel, either, and they won't be the last. While taking a gander at fellow TechRaptor writer Robert N. Adams' article on convention cancellations and game delays, it becomes immediately apparent how much of an impact that the virus has made on everything. Just add another cancellation to the pile I guess.
Quick Take
While I'm not Nintendo's biggest fan, I've always loved how they do most of their announcements: a 20-30 minute YouTube video, with announcements coming one after the other. Gamers don't need a WWE-esque announcer hyping things up in an auditorium with bored journalists. We hype ourselves up just fine without needing someone else to do it for us. Hopefully with COVID-19 raging we'll have more of what Nintendo is doing then having an E3, even if its a digital one. IMO, E3 is a dinosaur and it's about time we put it and announcements like it to bed.
