The ESA, the organizer of E3, has not had a good time in recent years, especially after the event was canceled in 2022 and 2023. The last edition of the event was so bad for the company that it resulted in a loss of millions of dollars.
Since it is a nonprofit company, financial documents were made public, and we can see that the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) had a bad year in 2021.
This was the last year in which there was an E3, however, it had to be solely virtual due to the pandemic, and the information reveals that the change did not sit well with the company.
ESA lost millions with its digital E3
According to details from ProPublica (via IGN), the ESA paid $3.9 million to Paragon Creative Agency and $580,000 to Smithbucklin to handle the event management, and $1.6 million to Game Cloud Network to take care of the event's web platform.
The ESA would have spent $7.3 million, but it is estimated that the investment was larger since the recorded expenses do not cover figures prior to April 2021 and include "conferences, conventions, and meetings" that took place throughout that year.
Unfortunately, this did not have a positive impact, but rather the ESA's profits were deficient, precisely $3.4 million. This means that the company would have lost at least $4 million in the organization of the digital event.
Another detail that stands out is that salaries were high that year. The president of the organization, Stanley Pierre-Louis, reported a salary of $1.5 million (0.2 million more than the previous year), not counting a bonus of $78,579 USD. On the other hand, the president of the ESRB, Patricia Vance, had an income of just over $1 million.
This information comes to light at a critical stage for the ESA, as it was recently suggested that E3 would not take place in 2024 or 2025. However, the organization has only confirmed that the event has not been canceled.
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