Gaming hot ticket E3 2020 looks like it's the latest tech event fragged by coronavirus

Here's some advice that should come naturally to gamers: Stop going outside

The organisers of video gaming expo E3 are expected to cancel this year's edition later today over coronavirus concerns.

The event, which is run by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), was scheduled to take place over June 9-11 at the Los Angeles Convention Centre.

The ESA is expected to issue a formal announcement at 09:30 local time (16:30 GMT).

Although it has struggled in recent years as cornerstone vendors switch to their own events or limit their involvement, E3 has nonetheless served as a major event in the gaming calendar since 1995. Studios and vendors have traditionally used it as a launchpad to showcase their latest work.

If the ESA ultimately does cancel E3, it can take comfort in knowing that it's not the sole gaming event derailed by the COVID-19 epidemic, which has killed thousands and paralysed large industrialised nations like Italy and China.

The owners of the annual Games Developer Conference (GDC) were forced to indefinitely postpone in February after a number of major exhibitors withdrew including Sony, Microsoft, Epic and Oculus.

Across the wider tech sector, dozens of events have been cancelled. The largest (and arguably most damaging) was Mobile World Congress – which left hundreds of thousands of exhibitors and attendees out of pocket, and forced brands to re-evaluate their launch schedules.

In a twist of irony that'd make Alanis Morissette puke on her Louboutins, a coronavirus roundtable has also been scrapped because… you guessed it… coronavirus.

Organised by the Council on Foreign Relations, "Doing Business Under Coronavirus" was expected to take place on Friday in New York.

To channel our inner Richard Littlejohn: "You couldn't make it up." ®