[3][4][5][6] E3 included an exhibition floor for developers, publishers, and manufacturers to showcase their titles and products for sale in the upcoming year.

Before 2017, E3 was an industry-only event;[7] the ESA required individuals wishing to attend to verify a professional relationship with the video game industry.

According to Eliot Minsker, chairman and CEO of Knowledge Industry Publications (which produced and promoted the show with Infotainment World), "Retailers have pointed to the need for an interpretive event that will help them make smarter buying decisions by interacting with a wide range of publishers, vendors, industry influentials, and opinion leaders in a focused show setting.

Ferrell contacted the IDSA who saw the appeal of using their position in the industry to create a video game-specific tradeshow, and offered to co-found the Electronic Entertainment Expo with IDG.

From then on, E3 was seen to play a major part in other console wars, with journalists reporting on which manufacturer "won" E3 based on their product offerings.

Although Sony Computer Entertainment was the show's original sponsor, the company withdrew its support in favor of its PlayStation Expo.

[12] To avoid this, the ESA announced in July 2006 that E3 would be downsized and restructured due to the overwhelming demand from the exhibitors, and would limit attendees to those from the media and retail sectors.

[25] For 2007 and 2008, E3 was renamed to the E3 Media and Business Summit, and moved into the July timeframe, about two months later in the year than previous shows.

[12][26] Industry analyst Michael Pachter said that because consumers had been eliminated from attending the events, there was little external media coverage of these E3s, reducing the visibility and commercialization opportunities for publishers, and suggested that without a change, E3 would become extinct.

[29] Responding to the complaints from the previous two years, the ESA announced that E3 2009 would be more open, but capping attendance at about 45,000 and closed to the public, as to achieve a balance between the two extremes.

[12] Electronic Arts, since 2016, have set up a separate EA Play event in a nearby locale to announce and exhibit their titles, citing the move as a result of the lack of public access to the main E3 show.

[12] By 2015, traditional video game marketing had been augmented by the use of publicity through word-of-mouth by average gamers, persons not normally part of the "professional" development community.

The ESA began to seek ways to allow these people to attend E3 in limited numbers without overwhelming the normal attendees.

[33][34] In 2017, the ESA reserved 15,000 tickets to the convention for members of the public to buy;[35] these were all sold, leading to more than 68,000 attendees during E3 2017, which led to noticeable crowding and floor management issues.

[38] The ESA unveiled the new logo for E3, replacing its previous one using three-dimensional block letters with a flatter, stylized graphic, in October 2017.

[44] Sony's CEO Shawn Layden stated in a February 2019 interview that with changes in retailer procurement, their own switch to fewer but more quality titles, and the rapid spread of news via the Internet that having a trade show as late as June is no longer helpful, and that Sony had to create its own Destination PlayStation experience in February as to secure retailer sales.

[45] Industry Analyst Michael Patcher, speaking to GamingBolt, said, "I think it's a mistake to skip the show, they will probably be there without a big booth.

[47] Developers and publishers complained of the increasing cost to have a booth presence at E3 compared to simply holding a digital event streamed online, saying the exposure afforded by E3 was not always worth the price.

[48] Sony and Electronic Arts' departure and Nintendo's move to a digital-only keynote diminished E3's status as the premier game announcement event, which further eroded its ability to attract exhibitors.

[51] A number of journalists on the lists reported that they were subsequently harassed and had received death threats due to their private information being released as part of the leak.

[52] Ahead of E3 2020, the ESA stated they were taking stricter security measures to protect the privacy of those registering for E3 as a result of the leak.

Alongside this, the ESA had presented proposed, but not finalized, plans to make the 2020 event a "fan, media, and influencer festival".

To mitigate the longer lines caused by increased public attendance, they aimed to use "queuetainment" to advertise to attendees while they wait, as well as a FastPass-like system of reserving game demos in advance similar to the one employed by Disney Parks.

[57] Sony affirmed it would not attend the 2020 show, stating that the vision for E3 2020 did not meet their goals, and instead would showcase their games at other events throughout the year.

[59] On February 12, 2020, Geoff Keighley, host of E3 Coliseum and The Game Awards, released a statement announcing that he would also be forgoing his attendance of E3 for the first time in the expo's 25-year history, citing his discomfort with the direction planned for the event in 2020.

[64] Keighley would organize Summer Game Fest—an event series encompassing various publisher-led digital presentations and demo offerings from May to August 2020.

[83] According to ESA's president, Stanley Pierre-Louis, the choice to cancel the 2023 show was a result of three factors: that the COVID-19 pandemic had impacted the typical development cycle for most companies; that the current economy had publishers and developers re-evaluate the need for attending E3; and that, as a result, there has been more exploration of the mix of in-person and digital marketing events that individual companies have run.

[10] Pierre-Louis said that other live events were not responsible for the decision to end E3, while the increasing number of publisher-specific showcases was a reason.