Maybe not a popular opinion but I'd like the E3 (and other similar events) to close once and for all. I'm liking the idea of having a shit ton of events throughout the summer.
I wouldn't go as far, but I'll tell you this: in the present, I fail to understand how the industry continues to revolve around these events, that fail to engage with much of their customer base.
Not everyone lives in Tokyo, or Los Angeles.
In fact, most people live outside of these big centres. More: as seen by stats, many people who frequently buy games, like myself, doesn't live in the US, the UK, Japan, or Germany.
So, we are automatically excluded from these events, we never get to engage with these developers, we never get to play their convention demos, (...).
When I had an Xbox 360, one time Microsoft did a heavy push to have a "digital convention" of sorts during an E3, and that year as soon as they showed certain games in their conference (that was streamed through the console menus), they uploaded all these trailers, and demos, so that those at home could try them. That was really neat. And, I would say, the way to make people worldwide engaged.
And now, several indie publishers have been doing similar things on Steam (like the recent LudoNarraCon, and apparently Valve has a similar event next month).
And, I certainly welcome it.
Sure, I know these conventions are useful to make connections, but in terms of getting people to know about your game, and getting people to care about your game, digital is the way to go. You have access to a lot more people.
When things get back to "normal", I hope all these digital events result in the next E3 to be a mixed event, with demos being available both on booths, and digitally on the several platforms, and more streamable events and panels.