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GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo To Replace E3?
dowlingw writes "With the recent announcement that E3 has been downsized, a similar high-profile event, GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo 2007 is being held in Perth, Western Australia and promises to showcase products and services from vendors worldwide, especially those in the South-East Asia region. It also looks like everyone might get a similar event closer to home."
Well, they have no Linux support on the site. "Alternate HTML content should be placed here.This content requires the Macromedia Flash Player.Get Flash" By "Get Flash" do they mean "Get Flash 8"? Impossible!
Switching to Linux is easier than you think - http://www.ubuntu.com
Why the name Go3? Why Go? Why 3?
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
What a great idea - hold your global event in the most isolated city in the world.
Perth is at the middle of nowhere, even from other major cities of Australia and they expect to pull a global audience ?
Perth is so the best city to hold this event. its all location, location, location....
now if only i could find it
Then, naturally, the next question is... what indeed would the point of /another/ gamming expo, namely this G03, be?
Wow! It's about time something like this came to Perth - Perth is an amazing venue which will be able to cater for both the convention side of things and the nightlife side of things. Exhibitions that are always held in large(r) cities can get boring - doesn't matter if you're in Sydney, New York or some other large city it's all basically the same.
It's refreshing to see that some companies want to change things a little bit and get out to less know cities that have heaps of personality and heaps to offer the professional and casual gamer who through it's gates...
I know that (as soon as I can see the site - because it's not Linux compat.) I'm going to be one of the first queing up for tickets to this event!
Considering how many people are willing to get on a plane for E3..
E3 is for game developers and the media to mix - this GO3 thing is not. By the simple fact that it has "Family" and "Kids" admission prices on their site means that it's not the serious hardcore thing E3 is/was.
Hell, E3 didn't even let people under the age of 18 to attend anyway.
Nothing is going to "replace" E3. The whole point is that the event was too expensive for publishers for not enough return. Why have an even where everyone shows up and you have to pay millions of dollars for when you can bring ALL the gamer journalists, retail purchasing agents, etc (i.e. the people who MATTER, not gamestop employees) - you can fly them all in, wine and dine, etc etc. for less cost than a public booth at E3. For a few days they're YOURS. No competing with the most sound from the competitors booth. No need for booth babes (hell, you could hire an army of stippers for the same purpose). Now that everyone has agreed E3 sucks, why go back to the old model? Fans will have to look elsewhere - the general open expo is gone for good. Sorry.
What a lot of people might not be immediately aware of is the political motivation for any convention/exhibition being held in Perth.
The Perth Convention Exhibition Centre is a tomb. It was a taxpayer's nightmare. It was expensive, took god damn ages to build and ultimately became an eyesore because of the banal 'generic block of buildings' design that was chosen. It was an attempt to attract more conventions and exhibitions in Perth but these days remains mostly dormant and unused. Not to mention that when it IS used, entrance fees are ludicrously expensive (in a vain attempt to offset the cost) and still feels obtrusive and unwelcoming.
If it actually ends up happening, don't expect the "GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo" to be anything more than horrible. You'll end up paying extortionary prices for parking only to find maybe a hundred booths with no groundbreaking visions into the future of their product line, but instead a couple of racks full of computer hardware you could get already buy off the shelf for a cheaper price at your local computer store and games that've been released months ago.
This is just another disappointing 'expo' that serves no purpose to the consumer. It's a futile attempt to justify the construction of the centre which has spent more days empty and sucking taxpayer's money than anything else.
I live near LA asshole so Australia is not "closer to home". E3 was close to home, but I could never go because I don't have the fucking hookups like you assholes. I finally make some connections and what happens? E3 dies. Fuck you. I hate all you industry ass kissers. All you do is hype up the next big project from the publishers. Do something useful. Make a game.
"With the recent announcement that E3 has been downsized, a similar high-profile event, ${LACK_LUSTER_NAME} + ${NUMERICAL_POSTFIX} is being held in ${CITY}, ${COUNTRY} and promises to showcase products and services from vendors worldwide, especially those in the ${REGION} region.
not that I really pay the worlds most attention to E3, but for what I can say about it - this article might as well be another cliche ad/article with "iPod Killer" in the title. in other words, I doubt much of anything could kill E3...
It looks like a battle is brewing in East Asia to host the next big electronic entertainment show. This would have happened anyway, but with the downsizing of E3, the stakes are now higher. Recently there was a show proposal that would be hosted in South Korea and I wouldn't be too surprised to see a Chinese proposal in the near future.
Right now Perth may have a couple of advantages, one it's in an English speaking territory so it can potentially draw interest from North America. And two, it doesn't carry the political baggage that Korean, Chinese, and Japanese sites might due to the history of the relations of those nations. And for a city the size of Perth (1.3 million it says on the site), having a successful show like this once or twice a year may add enough to the local economy to make it worthwhile. Not only that, a good GO3 could attract other shows from across Australia to Perth.
While some serious business could be done at such a show, I think it is pretty clear that they're after the hordes of consumers who will come for the hype, glitz, and a chance to play some new games. I wouldn't expect too many consumers to take a trip from the Americas to Perth for this show, but you can bet that visitors from Asia might make the trip along with Australians of course.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Unlikely, as it is geographically poorly located wrt most development houses & press.
On the other, I've also heard GenCon put forward as a replacement. GenCon in the past has had many games from small and independent game developers showcased at the show, and I have recently heard of several other game developers with plans to attend upcoming GenCon shows. Unfortunately they are still the small players(i.e. nothing new here with this) but time will tell...
Could also be that some of the shows held in Germany will also be more likely to see developers showing off their new wares as there are a significant number of development houses now in Europe and former Soviet bloc countries, even though they are, mostly, struggling... (i.e. some of the game premises aren't bad, but the execution usually leaves alot to be desired, esp. wrt polish... IMNHO the best examples so far being the X series, Gothic series, Operation Flashpoint, and Sacred... I suppose that Fable should also be mentioned, but... Witcher is looking good, but we WILL be VERY dated by the time it's released(Poland, using the old NWN engine...)) Another problem is that none of these games have been all that great sellers, esp. for the German & English games where development costs are much higher...)
What's going to replace E3 is PAX for all those companies that still want to exhibit what they're working on in a convention style environment.
The only way a number of smaller companies can get attention from the press is if the ravenous gamer crowd is *looking* for any new piece of information. EA can get the attention of the masses any time they want. Smaller studios need a gimmick to get gamers to look for them even if its on accident. PAX will and already is filling this role. With such a significant amount of game development happening in either LA or Seattle not Australia, I see the Penny Arcade Expo quickly swelling dramatically in size next year to epic proportions. They're already filling the Seattle Convention Center this year.
We're in the Internet age, the whole thing could be done in a smarter way....
What with all the snakes.
Not long ago, the trade was dominated by the three great US shows: Comdex, CES and E3. Comdex has gone, E3 is being downsized and CES has already got too big to handle.
It seems Leipzig Games Convention http://www.gc-germany.de// will take over as the big western event. This year event takes place from August 23 to August 27 and alle the big players (MS, Sony, Nintendo, EA etc.) will be present. They expect over 150,000 visitors this year and a lot more next year.
This is certainly not an expo without history. The Leipzig Trade Fair has been going since Otto the Rich founded it in 1190...
This has the potential to become a big regional expo, but the global exposure seems limited. After E3, the other big gaming-related get-togethers are the GDC and SIGGRAPH. SIGGRAPH wouldn't work, as that is almost purely about the nuts and bolts of emerging graphics and that involves the movie industry as well. GDC is totally game-centric and a bit less propellerhead, which is good for the mainstream press. It seems to me that it would make sense to tack on a few extra days to GDC where it could opened to the press and the publishers and developers could do their big announcments in less expensive surroundings without the general public stomping around. With out the glitz, you would have to court the mainstream press more actively, but GDC is also the perfect venue to play the "games as art" card and have hoity toity types like Slate or the stuffed shirts over at the Grey Lady pay attention.
Yeah, but all the way to dear ol' Perf?
Seriously, it's a place where people end up stuck because they can't afford the airfares out (happened to my parents back in the '70s.)
Thoroughly lovely to live here (low crime, low pollution, best damn beaches in the world), but the place is dead, and the convention center is a hole.
Also, seriously, five hours by plane from anywhere of note, and more than fifteen hours from the US and europe. I somehow don't think I'm gonna be seeing huge milling crowds.
The obvious answer to the "What event will replace E3?" question is Quakecon.
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1)It already has a huge following.
2)It is in the US.
3)There have been E3 sized displays at the convention for years now.
4)There seems to have been some word from ID software that they are willing to let more companies throw up displays in the future: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_cont
Why is it all the comments talk about how hard it is for them to get there.
First off this topic's title is all wrong. They arn't replacing E3, they are creating a e3 style event in Australia for the korean and asian gaming community. This is a community that puts americans to shame.
Second off Quake Con, PAX, and TGS can NOT replace E3, they aren't the same event. E3 was an industry only event that fans corrupted by forcing their way in. That's the reason it fell, because the show started to cater to those people who didn't have a reason to be there. The news media basically had to fight with kids. Sure IGN got back room views, however the local news medias and the independant games got ignored more and more in recent years.
Third E3 is going to remain E3. It's just going to be invitation only, like it always should be. The only group that appears to be considering a true successor is the CEA which runs CES. Everyone else is trying to make a fan based show, that's the complete opposite of what the original idea is. And we have tons of public trade shows already.
Fourth all of you who read this and say "I gotta get invited to that" or "I gotta go to that" Thank you for being that person who helped ruined E3. The simple fact is that E3 was hurt because people like you, who didn't belong forced their way into the show, ran around and made everyone's life hard. That's why it's been basically kaiboshed. Next time you're lamenting the fact you can never go to E3, just remind yourself you should never have tried in the first place. This includes the fake news media (thanks for your website that's only up when they are checking it and has no real info), the fan, or the store clerk who really did nothing but go play games, as well as the guys who are "making the game" by which I mean have started a 100 line code product and write approximately 1 line of code a millenia.
If you actually do work in the industry, you know well enough what I'm talking about so you'd disregard this anyways.
As far as I can tell, the 3 rules of real estate also apply to conventions.
Those rules? Location, location, location.
Game Companies have a few markets that they really care about. Those markets appear to be Japan, North America, and Europe.
E3 is North America's big show. The Tokyo Game Show is Japan's big show, although Nintendo holds its own Space World Expo every year. I am unfamiliar with any such show for Europe. I would not doubt if one exists, though.
The idea of replacing E3 with a show in Australia is simply ludicrous, because the Australia game market simply isn't large enough to support it.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011