There Is No Point To E3

Modesitt writes "Corpnews offers some thoughts on how E3 has changed for the worse. Several factors are mentioned, but the increased number of people sporting 'Exhibits Only' badges courtesy of Best Buy, CompUSA, and EB Games is focused on as a cause of the descent of E3." From the article: "The only legitimate purpose to E3 is as a media event, for companies to show off their products to the public via the media (after all, such a tiny sliver of the gaming public could go to E3, even if it was open to the public, that the press must inevitably mediate this process), and it is failing terribly at that. Companies are no longer courting the press, or even attempting to develop new contacts among them; now, it is an established siege war between giant website network and shitty magazines, and arrogant companies who divulge the merest crumbs and act as if this were a thunderous pronouncement from Yahweh."

Comments

Bitter.

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The feeling I get from R'ing TFA is that the writer is bitter about people not blowing him as soon as he steps near a booth.

"Worse yet, the private hallways are becoming more and more hostile to media they are 'unfamiliar' with- and by that, I do not mean small, nor do I mean only to Corp writers. Corpnews is a medium-large website in the videogame industry now, and I am not the only media badge to have experienced outright hostility at my inability to name-drop at the front entrance to this or that booth. Companies like Vivendi and EA will ask for a name right off the bat before admitting you to their corporate Shangri La, Blizzard was running World of Warcraft media demos on the noisy show floor, and Nintendo did not even have enough press kits for all media, saying "We only give these out to major media outlets". Well, fantastic, I'll be sure to tell ABC's crack video game department to saunter on by and hear how you plan on not eating #3 dust in the next round of the console wars, smart guys."

The guy's got an inflated opinion of his Blog (that I've never heard of) and he's crying about it.

Re:Bitter.

[Anonymous Coward]

I say you are spot on. Kind of funny that they complain about stuff like "giant website network and shitty magazines, and arrogant companies who..." and then go on about how their site is special/different and they should be devoted more attention.

What we have here is someone with a no-name blog/site(anyone here even know about or visited this site before this article?) whining about how they didn't get as much attention as the big name sites/magazines, and how these companies didn't bend over and let him have his way. I don't blame the companies, it isn't like they have all the time & resources to give an interview with every Random Joe Gamer Site/Blog or give them each a $400+ trinket.

At least some of the other gamer run sites don't let this junk go to their heads, and have provided us with E3 coverage that is often as good or even better then the big name site/magazines.

Re:Bitter.

[Metaphorically]

Not only bitter, but totally without justification. Have a look at the archives. Specifically the post titled "(Old, Repost)E3: French Wookies 2003 Redux " from E3 in 2003. Here are a few choice excerpts:

Some people recognize the Corp web link on our press passes, but few have ever actually read the site enough to know what a monumentally thorough mistake it is to let us into anything official. Between our unquantifiable-but-legitimate press passes, and Mr. Poppinfresh's ability to ninja-speak our way into VIP demos, we drift through E3 in a strange grey no-mans-land, where we see all and are required to produce nothing of quality in return.

Okay, now why is it that they can't get media kits? Maybe there are so many closed doors at E3 because a few years back him and his pals walked in to demos with this approach

Raph: This is the character creation screen. As you can see, there are many well-known races already... Pop: MAKE A WOOKIE!

It's one thing to complain that you're having trouble getting newsworthy stories at a tradeshow, but this guy clearly states the reason why is that he's ruined for himself and the rest of us.

Re:Bitter.

[iocat]

I used to work a big game magazine, and I can confrim that most companies perform a pretty intuitive, brutal, and sorry-for-the-little-guys, accurate triage of people with media badges before they hand out kits, interviews, or sample copies of games.

Pretty much if you didn't book an appointment in advance of the show, they can't be bothered with you. This is as true for the big guys as for the little guys -- there are only so many half hour press slots at E3, and a good PR perosn works to fill them in advance with the biggest outlets she or he can find for their products. Just having a media badge doesn't count for much if they've never heard of you, and E3 isn't the place to try to make initial press introductions.

As for the "point" of E3, although PR and marketing use it as a great opportunity for press, it's as much for those much-disdained-by-the-poster folks from EB, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart. At the higher, closed-door levels, publishers want to impress buyers with their wares, including what's on the floor and what's several months out past that. At the "exhibits only" level, the idea is for salespeople to get to play the games so they can make informed comments to their customers who didn't go to the author's blog.

Not to disagree... Wait, nevermind

[Wraithfighter]

Yeah, the bullshit factor has probably increased significantly over the years, but who cares? It still remains one of the few times when projects are released en masse. The pre-show press conferences are basically the "state of the console" addresses for the big console makers.

Also, something that the author forgot to mention, there are a lot of little developers there, making games that might not have distributors yet or need investors in order to continue making their game.

If you don't care about the huge companies, and actually want to see something, then don't head to the big main area: They're only courting the IGN's and GameSpots and EGM's out there, the news outlets with millions of readers (or at least a few hundred thou), because they're just showing off.

The little guys need as much press as they can get, and they will probably be more than willing to show you their game if it means an article on any kind of gaming news site.

Over a thousand games at the con. Look for the 90% that people don't know about if you want to do news!

Re:This is true

[badasscat]

The point of the article I think is that E3 used to be a 'trade' show, and now its a 'hype' show, and thus useless as a tradeshow.

Exactly. It was originally an industry gathering, a true "convention", like there are in a lot of other industries. The media started covering it because, well, games are popular and a lot of games were being shown there. And that has ended up transforming what E3 fundamentally is.

I wouldn't say E3 serves no purpose. But I do think that it's ultimately irrelevant. Nobody buys a game machine because of what goes on at E3. They buy it because of what happens after E3. I could list you so many years and so many companies that supposedly "won" or "lost" E3, or that had particularly good or bad showings, and then went on to do the exact opposite of what everybody predicted they would do in the real-world marketplace (Sega and Microsoft being at the top of the list with their respective late Dreamcast and early Xbox showings).

There is too much importance placed on E3 by the media. It is ultimately a sideshow. It's interesting, and if you read between the lines you can glean some useful info, but it is basically just a bunch of PR reps trying to put their best face on. Ultimately, the companies that show well at E3 are just the companies with the best PR departments or PR agencies. But that says absolutely nothing about either the actual quality of the games or their ultimate marketability and popularity.

(God, did I just use the word "marketability"?! I've officially crossed to the dark side.)

Re:Shitty?

[Anonymous Coward]

You also don't see the unspeakable name of God on the front page either. I know that religion is generally unpopular around here, but it would be nice if the editors didn't go out of their way to offend people.