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The ESA's Letter To the Kentia Hall All-Stars
GameDaily has the letter than the Entertainment Software Association sent to some of the smaller players that used to attend E3. Despite the polite wording, the message is clear: smaller vendors are no longer welcome. With the 'focused' approach that the E3 Media event in 2007 will be taking, the folks that made Kentia Hall so memorable will likely be nowhere in sight. From the article: "Details of the event have not been finalized at this time, however our vision and goal is to create a more intimate climate for personalized meetings and product demonstrations. The ESA will announce additional details and information in the ensuing weeks and months. We would like to take this opportunity to extend our sincere and profound gratitude for your past support of this event. It has been exciting and rewarding to see the growth and significance of this industry mirrored on the exhibit floor of the E3Expo through the years. We look forward to many more years of industry growth, vitality and opportunity. "
I've seen this said on a few other blogs as well, but I don't see it. It sounds like a form letter to me, probably sent to everybody that sends a similar inquiry regardless of company size. I don't see anything that implies that smaller vendors are "no longer welcome". All that it says is that it's a smaller event. Yes, that implies that smaller vendors will probably have a tougher time attracting the media, simply because there won't be a centralized place to find all these smaller vendors (most of the media covered Kentia Hall on the last day, all at once). But I don't see any suggestion here that these vendors cannot attend.
I think some people are surprised to see that the ESA refers to the "old" E3 as "cancelled". But once you get that fact through your heads, you'll stop reading things into letters like this that aren't there. E3 is cancelled for everybody, not just the smaller vendors. It hasn't been downsized. It's been cancelled, and a new event put in its place. The format of that new event will be totally different than the one its replacing, but it sounds to me as if everybody, vendor-wise, is just as equally welcome to attend it. How the media ends up covering it is a question for them, though, not the ESA.