EA announced second EA Play event in Hollywood. No E3 booth this year

Electronic Arts has announced they’re going to be bringin their EA Play fan event back to Los Angeles from June 10 to June 12. They’ve also announced that they’ll be absent from E3 again this year, a repeat of last year’s performance when they forwent a booth at the games giant for their own event, with its own conference and hands-on oppertunities.

EA Play is running directly before E3, although it’s been moved further away this year, taking place in Hollywood Palladium, which is several miles away from the Los Angeles Convention Centre that houses E3.

The physical distance is a mirror for EA’s ideological distancing from the event, and is sending a clear message that for EA at least, E3 doesn’t have what they need. Last year EA, Activision, Disney and Wargaming were some of the high profile companies to swear off the event in 2016.

“We will be focused on EA Play at the Hollywood Palladium,” EA told VentureBeat in a statement. “EA Play was such a powerful platform for us last year to connect with our player community. We learned a ton, and we wanted to build on everything we loved about last year’s event to make EA Play 2017 even better."

"We’ve selected the Hollywood Palladium as a place where we can bring our vision of creativity, content and storytelling to life, and build an even more powerful experience to connect with players, community leaders, media and partners. EA Play 2017 will originate from Hollywood, with more ways for players around the world to connect and experience the excitement.”