The Demise of E3

[Legend Ver 2]

So the legendary Expo in which gamers all around the world gather in celebration of next generations games each year have finally met its end. From the information I gathered, the movement of the big company's such as Sony and Activision are pulling their support from the event, and without financial support from the big guys up there, it's impossible to host an event of such caliber. Personally, the news has yet to have an affect on me, until of course next year when there's no local expo fill my anticipation of MGS4 and DMC4, then maybe I'm gonna start crying. So waht are your thoughts in this issue?

[srb]

Some 70 million dollars in lost revenue for the City of Los Angeles due to the visitors can't be fun for them.

I find the reasons for the big names to back out are silly. E3 could be so much more than it is now, instead it's going in the opposite direction.

[DJ*]

It had become to big and was costing companies too much. It's a good move; one step back, two steps forward and all that.

[hooliganj]

Originally Posted by srb

I find the reasons for the big names to back out are silly. E3 could be so much more than it is now, instead it's going in the opposite direction.

They backed out for the only reason a big company would ever back out - somebody did a cost/benefit analysis and realized it wasn't amking them any money. Those E3 booths cost millions of dollars every year for what is basically a publicity stunt that doesn't even generate all that much publicity.

Frankly, I won't miss it. Thanks to the one-supershow-fits-all mentality caused by E3, almost every major game is revealed in May, but in most of those cases, I have to wait until it gets released in October/November to play, and sometimes even into the next year. I think it's better to break the supershow into a series of smaller shows, designed to more comfortably meet the needs of either the press or the general public, whoever gets invited. This way companies can save money on the booths, and get more effective press out of it since the information would hit the market closer to the actual release of the game. Gamers also benefit by being able to learn about new games when the information is relevant, rather than 6 months to a year earlier.

[Maou_Sama]

This was made in another forum I went to. They said it wont be canceled just... delayed or something.

[Catgirls]

This might be of interest to four of you...

Why E3's shifting to a smaller playing field

On Monday, the Entertainment Software Association announced that it's scaling back the Electronic Entertainment Expo, its signature trade show and the video game industry's largest event.

ESA execs said E3 is getting a major downsizing (E3 to be scaled down or cut?) because it had gotten too big, with 60,000 attendees in May. When the conference was started 11 years ago, organizers thought it would be an ideal format for getting game makers as much attention as their Hollywood brethren. And, it was supposed to be a key venue for retailers to shmooze with game publishers.

But the game industry no longer needs that kind of hand-holding, said ESA president Douglas Lowenstein in an interview with CNET News.com. In fact, Lowenstein said the conference was still profitable--if unwieldy.

Lowenstein said the new E3, which he expects will be called the "E3 Interactive Media Festival," will likely be an invite-only event in July 2007, and it probably will have less than 7,000 attendees. The idea, he said, is to give publishers an opportunity to interact directly with media outlets in small settings without all the hoopla.

(Want to know more?)

[Quarkboy]

Hmm, didn't anime expo have 40,000 attendees this year?

Think it's only a matter of time 'til that goes too?

[Komataguri]

Originally Posted by DJ*

It had become to big and was costing companies too much. It's a good move; one step back, two steps forward and all that.

Its costing companies to much because they put a bunch of useless flashy shit and build stupendously over exaggerated booths to try to draw attention away from the competitors.


So they got themselves into a vicious cycle of stupidity that finally let to them doing the business equivalent if sticking their finger in a pickle slicer.

[Kyuusai]

E3 collapsed under its own weight.

It was done in by the very companies that participated in it. They saw that it was being attended by gamers, increased their pandering to the "common man" instead of journalists and industry workers and ruined it for themselves.

What they're converting to has its advantages, but much is lost. They just needed to stick on the middle ground, but the cat was already out of the bag.

[Keitaro]

This is a surprise I never imagine they were having such trouble. So no big flashy E3 next year?

[Ombrenuit]

Upon reading the articles at gamespot, my opinion changed. They discussed how before, E3 was like a kept secret. They would discourage the public from coming and everyone would have to find clever ways to sneak in. However, in 2005, they practically invited the public to come, urging people who had no business there with advertising.

Although they did have high ticket prices, they were encouraging people, and the cat was out of the bag. Come 2006, there were so many people there, as the Gamespot editor described, it might as well have been a "Shindig". The public, most of which had no business there, was too involved. It was causing serious problems and undermining the very reason the expo exists. Appealing to the public was a mistake for both developers and organizers. This announcement is their reaction to that.

Also, the withdrawl of big name companies is always a feint. If you know anything about politics, it's simply a bluff: "Change this issue or we won't come back." If you ask me, the bluff was pretty successful.