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The ESA's E3 2020 partner iam8bit resigns from event role

The event coordinators are no longer on the team, although it's not yet clear why the company has resigned.

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As part of its plan to revitalise E3 after last year's struggles, the ESA had announced a collaboration with event coordinators iam8bit, with the company set to "shake things up" in an attempt to make E3 2020 more relevant. Now, however, it seems like the E3 organisers are having to go in a different direction, although it's not yet clear why.

The news first came to us over on Twitter, where iam8bit shared the following short statement:

It's with mixed emotions that @iam8bit has decided to resign as Creative Directors of what was to be an evolutionary #E32020 floor experience. We've produced hundreds of gaming + community events and it was a dream to be involved with E3. We wish the organizers the best of luck.

That doesn't tell us all that much about what plans they had, nor why they've moved away from the project. It doesn't sound like it's coronavirus-related (lots of big events are closing their doors to the public so it's a reasonable assumption), and the following response from the ESA doesn't shed much light on the situation either.

"We can confirm that iam8bit is no longer part of the inter-agency group working on E3 2020," the ESA wrote in a statement sent to PC Gamer. "We greatly value their passion for the video game industry and the contributions they brought toward our vision for this year's show. We have an innovative and experienced team in place including Endeavor's creative agency 160over90, event innovators Mat+Lo and longtime E3 partners, GES, Dolaher Events and Double Forte—all collaborating to bring to life an exciting and authentic experience for fans, the media and the industry."

Last year Sony decided to skip E3 and the PlayStation team will do so again in 2020, and companies like EA have also kept their distance in recent years. This might all be moot, however, as the full impact of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak is not easy to gauge, and large public events like E3 are at risk of being shut down in order to protect the health of all those who attend.

The ESA's E3 2020 partner iam8bit resigns from event role


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