E3 2020 Loses Creative Director Partner

Update: iam8bit responded to our requests for a statement and said the company had no further details to share. It added that it has “every confidence with the parties involved with E3 and wish them the best of luck.”

The ESA shared the following statement:

“We can confirm that iam8bit is no longer part of the inter-agency group working on E3 2020,” the ESA said. “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.”

Original: Another company has opted out of participating in E3 2020. The video game colletibles company iam8bit that’s known for working with a variety of brands to supply people with unique collectibles and game releases was previously on board with the Entertainment Software Association to help plan for E3 2020 and create fresh, new experiences for attendees. That was true at the end of January, but iam8bit has since announced that it’s decided to resign from its partnership. The company’s announcement was made with “mixed emotions,” according to iam8bit, with no explanation offered for the circumstances surrounding the latest E3 2020 development.

The announcement from iam8bit was shared in a tweet from the brand’s account where it said it’d decided to resign from its creative director position. The tweet touted the company’s history with planning other gaming events and said it was a “dream to be involved with E3.”

Beyond that, no further explanation was given as to why the partnership has ended. We’ve reached out to both the ESA and to iam8bit to see if either organization can offer an explanation on the situation.

The ESA’s prior announcement praised iam8bit and looked forward to the strengths the company would bring to E3 2020. The organization said it wouldn’t be producing E3 in a vacuum and used the partnership with iam8bit as an example of its plans to shake things up during this year’s show.

“You’ll be happy to know that we’re not producing E3 2020 in a vacuum,” the ESA’s announcement said. “For E3 2020, we’re collaborating with industry insiders and new creative partners, including the tastemakers at iam8bit, to reinvigorate the show and, frankly, to shake things up.”

Sony also announced that it’s skipping E3 yet again this year. The PlayStation company followed last year’s trend by opting to skip E3 2020 while saying the “vision” for this year’s event wasn’t aligned with Sony’s plans for the year. Though Sony is by far the biggest name to announce that it won’t be there this time, iam8bit’s resignation from its creative director position is a different type of blow seeing how the company was supposed to be a core part of the new experiences at E3.

E3 2020 will be held from June 9th to June 11th.