The Entertainment Software Association's annual mega-event, E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), has been canceled this year, making it the latest in a series of high-profile events to be derailed by the global Coronavirus outbreak.

Video games make more money than any other form of entertainment or media in the world, and now the place where every publisher and developer comes to discuss business, talk deals, announce the holiday blockbusters, and sell to retailers, is now on the ropes.

On top of all of that, is the fact that brand new consoles are coming out this year (that's the plan, anyway). The Sony PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X are slated to release this fall, but without a public platform or stage to get the word out like usual, fans and PR reps will just have to wait for announcements somewhere else.

That somewhere else is Twitch.

You can see whenever a company has a press conference, it happens during June, which is when E3 is held every year at the LA Convention Center. The spike in December is for The Game Awards, the biggest award show in gaming. Otherwise, it's a wasteland for holding an online presser about your new upcoming titles or hardware specs.

In lieu of this, the major publishers who would have held press conferences this year will turn to their own social media accounts to live-stream anything they were planning on showing off to gamers and the press. Typically there are tweets, emails, posts, and articles that go up after the shows at E3 are finished, but this year they might be the standard-bearers, alongside Twitch broadcasts.

Except for Microsoft, which has its own competitor in Mixer.

About the Data:

Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales. 

Further Reading: 

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