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E3 2007 A More 'Targeted' Event
simoniker writes "Following some rampant media speculation over the weekend, the ESA trade organization has released an official statement on the future of the E3 game trade show, revealing that it is not cancelled outright, but is rather 'evolving into a more intimate event focused on targeted, personalized meetings and activities.' E3 2007 will still take place in Los Angeles next year, according to the ESA's Doug Lowenstein, but 'will not feature the large trade show environment of previous years.'" Which is to say, it's not really E3 anymore.
Hopefully this "intimate" event will improve the signal-to-noise ratio, which has been pretty atrocious recently. It may also spur more companies to run their own events just for their legions of fans... you know, like BlizzCon.
This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
One of the reasons Will Wright released the first gameplay video of Spore at the Game Developer Conference 2006, instead of E3, was because he felt E3 was more like a commercial used by game producers to hype the games before it comes out, not a place for developers to exchange ideas and make better games.
... a more intimate event focused on targeted, personalized meetings and activities.
So the booth babes are being replaced by hookers?
Exactly. The people who are upset that E3 is being changed are the people who made it untenable in the first place. E3 was intended to be an important business event, not the GenCon for video games that it has become.
The necessity of being a media circus has thrown the cost-benefit equation of E3 way off track. As a business event it was becoming less and less valuable because of the increasingly non-industry attendance, as a media event it was becoming less and less valuable because of the proliferation of other media channels (thanks Internet!), and it was continually getting more expensive. This change is good.
With E3 imploding, the games indutry is losing its biggest attention-grabbing showpiece.
Ya, it kinda deviated from its original intention as a trade show, but it became sort of a "Cannes" of videogames.
If you don't know what the Cannes Film Festival is, it's an annual international film festival (obviously) in the city of Cannes, France. The most important film festival in the world. It's filled to the brim with celebrities, and is a favourite venue for famous directors to debut their newest film.
E3, in recent years, started to emulate this festival in certain ways. In a more plasticky, american way, of course.
The internet may be the most efficient way of putting-out press releases, trailers and screenshots, but the games industry NEEDS a flashy annual event. (And I'm certain many of you will be quite vocal in your disagreement with this.)
Does it make you happy you're so strange?