: EA was the first major player to leave in 2016 to host its own fan-focused event, EA Play [28].

Historically, the event was anchored by the "Big Three"——whose press conferences became legendary for their high-stakes competition [15, 20, 22].

: Hosted by Geoff Keighley, this has become the spiritual successor to E3, offering a centralized window for major summer announcements [21, 36].