ESA (the Entertainment Software Association), the original creators of the E3 gaming event, has announced Interactive Innovation Conference, or iicon, a new event that will take place in Las Vegas next year between April 27 – 30 of 2026. The event will seek to convene “change makers across industries”, but with particular emphasis on video games.
Whilst on the surface this may seem like an uneventful announcement without further details, we’ve already had confirmation of a number of heavy hitters attending the event, including: Nintendo, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Microsoft, Amazon Games, Disney, EA, Epic Games, Square Enix, Take-Two Interactive, Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Games! Now that’s an impressive launch lineup.
This is widely being seen as somewhat a successor to E3, the now-cancelled event that saw gamers and companies from around the world meeting up to share the latest and greatest hardware and software announcements. Both E3 and iicon are both from the ESA and focus on video games after all, but the events will have very different experiences for those who attend.
E3 was very accessible to the public, but iicon will allow audience members only via invite, but there is a form to sign up for updates over on the official website. We don’t exactly know yet if iicon will serve as a hub of huge gamer announcements, or instead will just be a place for those within the gaming space and beyond to interact and share their visions and industry insights together. As such, that may make it more comparable to an event like GDC (Game Developers Conference) rather than the former bombastic E3, but time will show us how iicon works out next year.
Are you interested in what the iicon event has to offer? Do you miss E3, or do you prefer how gaming announcements are handled now? Sound off in the comments below, and keep your eyes on GameLuster for more breaking gaming news and industry coverage.
