E3 Cancelled

[Daaave]

So, apparently E3 has been cancelled, I'm sceptical to be honest, but, whatever.

 

 

Link

[Dark_Raven]

(w00t)

[Krookie]

Eh, so I won't know about some next-gen game that will probably be delayed three or four times before making an early holiday release that'll net it mediocre reviews.

[Kitch]

From Ars Technica:

 

Sources close to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) tell Ars Technica that the show can and will go on, but that big changes are planned. The "Electronic Entertainment Expo" (hence E3) started in 1995 as a small but interesting annual convention for gaming, following roughly six months after the once-popular annual COMDEX computer trade-show in Las Vegas. The show has grown immensely in popularity, and that appears to be the problem.

 

Sources say that two major factors have led to the decision to transition the show to a more "closed-door" event. Both, coincidentally, were major reasons for COMDEX shutting down: cost and access. If you've never been to E3, let me describe it like this: long lines, truckloads of people, video games everywhere, and really fancy "booths" (where booth sometimes means basketball court-sized display area). As with COMDEX, the major players are reportedly tired of how much it costs to put on the dog and pony show. Turns out it costs millions of dollars to put the sparkle into an E3 blingfest.

 

Now in theory, these shows are primarily geared towards connecting businesspeople. To that end, E3 was (again, in theory) only open to industry folks and journalists. In recent years, however, the number of people attending have skyrocketed, in part because E3 registration was a moderately open process. The show was getting huge, and just as with COMDEX, the show-within-a-show was born. What I mean by that is that it was no longer enough to go to the show. To talk to someone who actually knew what they were talking about, you'd need an appointment. To see something really special, really worth writing about, you'd need to meet behind closed doors. To find out anything of interest about something that wasn't on a placard, you needed to get in with the right people. With COMDEX the practice started to get ridiculous; major players officially skipped the show but set up camp in Vegas hotels and had their sideshows for a fraction of the cost.

 

One source I spoke with told me that media access is indeed a problem, but it probably does not factor in greatly to the decision to downsize the show. Nevertheless, there are plenty of complaints from insiders about how "blogging" in particular has made the shows more difficult, if only because floor people are instructed to speak only of what they are approved to speak of, lest another half-baked headline make the rounds.

[10k fists]

It hasn't been cancelled (as of yet anyway).

 

link

[Oerwinde]

as long as they don't cancel Comic-Con before I get to go I'm ok.

[Alec]

Too bad, I was hoping for a good next-gen game presentation

[Musopticon?]

^Hah, first post-only reader!

 

 

If it was true, I'd say good riddance, since the event has shifted focus so much after it's heavy marketizing. I mean, sure the games still the main thing, but there's so much extra unnecessary weight on the expo that it's high time something less grandiose was corporealised. Small, maybe one-label or -publisher events are actually the way to go. Audiecne still gets their coverage and glitter, but thanks to the events private nature, hyping and whoring your product is much more efficient.

 

Of course, if the focus would shift to little events, there'd be even more unhealthy competing among them.

[Lucius]

Damn, that would sorta seriously suck, sucky.

[Darth Drabek]

We have an Alliterator!

 

 

It's kinda like the Terminator, but of alliteration.

 

 

Nevermind.

[Lucius]

We have an Alliterator!

 

 

It's kinda like the Terminator, but of alliteration.

 

 

Nevermind.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Daaave]

We have an Alliterator!

 

 

It's kinda like the Terminator, but of alliteration.

 

 

Nevermind.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

[funcroc]

E3 2007 Revamp: Industry Comments at FiringSquad

 

Feargus Urquhart: Co-Founder, Obsidian Entertainment

 

First, can you comment on the argument that rising costs in exhibiting and planning for E3 has cause this retrenchment of the show?

 

Publishers have been spending a ton of money for the 15 years of shows that I've been going to, so while it probably costs more than it did, including adjusting for inflation, I don't think it is drastically different. Before Obsidian, I worked for Interplay for close to 12 years, so I was exposed to the publisher side of trade shows for a long time. Interplay's big booth debuted at CES in January of 1994. A few years later, in it's largest configuration, it was on a 8000 sq. ft. area of the show floor, was two stories, had 8 meeting rooms, a large lunch area and was able to demonstrate games on close to 50 computers or consoles. It took a week to setup and needed a staff of 40 to 60 people per shift during the show just to keep it running efficiently. At the time, Interplay wasn't even a top 5 publisher and was investing that sort of money and resources into trade shows almost ten years ago. So, I think the argument that E3 has gotten more expensive recently is not completely accurate.

 

E3 was the single biggest worldwide media even for the video and PC game industry, bringing in attention from a ton of both game enthusiast and mainstream media to cover the show. Without such a large event in the US for 2007, do you think that could impact the attention that the video and PC game industry gets from consumers and gamers?

 

I think the overall impact of E3 in the mainstream press is pretty huge, however the way we have usually been depicted on the 11 o'clock news is as something "weird". The movie industry's biggest night is the Academy Awards which gets 3 to 4 hours on TV and while the music numbers are often entertaining in the wrong way, it is an elegant display of their industry. The big presentation of our industry is all the flash, boob babes and loud music. So while we may get less press without a big E3 that might not be completely a bad thing.

 

Do you think the people who exhibit at E3 will save their money and spend less on marketing and advertising as a whole or will the money that was previously earmarked for E3 be used in other ways?

 

I would guess the money which publishers save at E3 will initially go into more PR and Marketing, I think that a fair amount of it will go to creating even more elaborate Pre-E3 events, since the reaction by the Marketing and PR Departments will be that they aren't getting the coverage they need at E3, so they need to maximize the coverage they get from the press at these events. In the long run, it's hard to say. Some of it might be saved, but it's more likely that it will go into more promotion. Products needs to sell more individually every year and one of the ways to make that happen is more Marketing and PR.

 

Do you believe that this retrenchment is just temporary or will other events in the US, including CES, the Game Developers Conference and Digital/Life, become bigger and more important without having E3 be such a big presence in the industry?

 

It's really hard to say if it will be temporary or permanent. One of the big reasons for trade shows was to have a place where the Sales departments could sell and the Marketing and PR departments could get the latest info and hype out on their games quickly. The Sales forces really don't do much selling at E3 anymore and with the advent of the web based game mags, people have access to the latest information on the games they are interested in the day after that info becomes public. I heard some people say that they got a better feeling for E3 this year by just going to the gamesites.

 

Finally, is there anything else that you wish to say about the retrenchment of E3?

 

I do have a couple of concerns when it comes to E3 going away and that is the effect it will have on international attendees and the gamers. E3 provides a big reason for publishers to fly out people from their international offices and since all the games were going to be in one place many of the international journalists come as well. Most of the Neverwinter Nights 2 interviews I did at E3 this year were with journalists outside of the US. Without E3, there might be less of them coming out which could hurt the international nature and acceptance of our games and industry. That impact might also be felt by the international offices not all flying in at one time and meeting and spending time with their American counterparts. Once people have met and spent time in person, business always has a habit of going more smoothly.

 

As for the gamers, when I was younger in 1993 and 1994 (before I had to attend 15 or 16 US Trade Shows), I couldn't wait to get to go to CES and E3. If E3 does shrink drastically or even go away, I think the biggest disappointment will be with people who just love games. It's the place where everyone gets to see the latest stuff and get excited about it, criticize it, wish you were playing it already, wishing you had the time to put that feature in your game and just get to hang out with other people that love games the way you do. So in that respect, it would be sad to see E3 go particularly if nothing replaced it.

[Oerwinde]

I think he's right on most parts. The money spent on marketing stuff at E3 is just going to be spent marketing stuff anyway. Likely in big things like the Sony and Microsoft press conferences.

 

Though those might be pretty cool for the major publishers like EA and Ubisoft.