After another major E3 data leak, a gaming luminary says bye to the expo

Enlarge / Does everyone play at E3 2020? Not Geoff Keighley. (credit: Jill Greenberg / Aurich Lawson)

While the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo is still scheduled to kick off in Los Angeles this June, the headlines surrounding the next incarnation have mostly been about who's not attending. After January's news that Sony would (once again) not attend E3, Wednesday came with confirmation of another major no-show, but it's not a game developer or a publisher; instead, it's journalist, promoter, and producer Geoff Keighley.

Gaming fans are likely familiar with Keighley's work as host of The Game Awards and various journalistic deep dives; his "Final Hours" series will emerge later this year with an insider's look at the development process of Valve's upcoming VR game Half-Life: Alyx. But in the case of E3, Keighley isn't just a guy who shows up to check out new video games. For the past few years, he's produced the E3 Coliseum series of game debuts and celebrity panels. And for over 20 years, he's organized the independent, E3-adjacent Game Critics Awards-which are a huge factor for members of E3's attending press in the West.

Some of that changes this year, according to a Wednesday statement posted to Keighley's Twitter account. After acknowledging his 25 years of E3 attendance, Keighley confirmed that he "will not be participating in E3" this year and that he "declined" to serve as producer of any E3 Coliseum-style events.

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