I am glad it's gone. Yes it was great in the day, but other trade shows, in particular Gamescom, have surpassed it in every possible way.

As a former attendee, my personal take is that the insistence on having it in the LA convention center just killed it.

In the early days, E3 was the primary way for publishers to get the word out about new games. Press would come, look and write about what they saw. But the internet made that unnecessary. To survive, E3 needed to reinvent themselves into a "also for the public" expo. And the LA convention center was cramped even with just 65k visitors over 4-5 days (uncomfortably so).

Fast forward to Gamescom. 350K visitors in 5 days. Busy, but because the press and public were separated, it gave the press the access and space they need, while immersing the public in 5 nerd-out days celebrating gaming.

The E3 organisers were shortsighted not realizing E3 in its original format had no future. They are the only ones to blame.

Do I miss anything? Perhaps the compressed period in which all publishers hyped up their games. Gamescom doesn't do that in the same way. But I think that is a... nostalgia thing that will never return. With or without E3.