E3 2007 - A Horse of A Different Color

Despite the smaller size and scope, there's still going to be a lot of games news coming down the pipe this week: the E3 Media and Business Summit 2007 kicks off soon. The big news starts with Microsoft's press conference on Tuesday, but already journalists are on the ground getting stories in order. E3 predictions are available from 1up and Gamespot's editorial team, while Eurogamer has a piece from their newsletter describing what's different about this year's E3. Not everyone is going this year that went last year because of those differences, and it will make for a wholly changed experience. "While a number of the publishers GameSpot contacted said they would consider participating in next year's E3 (some on the condition that the format is further tweaked), multiple representatives said they didn't believe there would be an E3 at all next year. Gamecock is even referencing that notion in its EIEIO event, which will cap off with a funeral service for the ESA's long-standing trade show. 'We're going to have some fun on the beach and say good-bye to the magical beast of yore that was E3,' Wilson said. 'I'd say there's a fair chance there won't be a show called E3 anything next year, which is why we're saying farewell to it on the beach. But I can't wait to see what emerges.'"

Comments

The Real action is at the GDC

[dave1791]

The thing with E3 was that gamers drooled over it and dreamed of going. How many webcomics have sported subplots about sneaking into E3? The new format seems about making journalists happy and giving a press conference venue. So it is strictly a PR venue. If you want to read the heartbeat of the gaming industry, the GDC is the place to be. That's where devs talk to each other.

Re:The Real action is at the GDC

[ACS Solver]

It will remain a major event for gamers as long as developers continue to announce big games there. I believe that GSC said it will announce the next STALKER franchise game at E3. I'm sure other developers will also make some interesting announcements at this years E3, if only by habit. In a couple of years though, it'll be really interesting to see how E3 compares to GDC.

Re:The Real action is at the GDC

[ofcourseyouare]

Good point. But my question about E3 is this -- when will Sony, MS and the developers of games for their platforms sit down and say something like this: "we're selling expensive consoles, with expensive games to match; we're being being thrashed by Nintendo, selling lower cost (and often) semi-casual games; we had the most famous industry event in the world outside the film business, attracting massive press and throngs of hardcore fans -- okay it cost a bit, but the PR value was huge... and we decided to just shut it down?!? And replace it with a bunch of low key meetings in Santa Monica!?!?! What were we thinking... or were we thinking at all..."

Time will tell of course, but I think in a few years time they may well try to revive E3, and find it's not so easy to get a media event like that back, once you've thrown it away.

I think closing E3 reflects clouded thinking of the same kind that got the PS3 into its current mess -- assuming the fans will always be there and will always buy, regardless of treatment/ marketing/ price, etc.

Re:The Real action is at the GDC

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Couldn't agree more

E3: Serious press event
GDC: Serious developer event
SpikeTV Game Awards: All the hype, crap, booth babes, etc. nobody actually cared about

Re:The Real action is at the GDC

[teh_chrizzle]

How many webcomics have sported subplots about sneaking into E3?

so many that some comics have created their own expo.

Re:The Real action is at the GDC

[Kelbear]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_for_All

They split it, rather than cancel it. One for the media, one for the consumer. Media will be focused on communicating to the press, the other will be for wowing the greater public. We'll find out which was actually more important: the new information(most of which will be at the small and earlier E3), or the glitz of the giant tradeshow with lights and spectacle(the consumer-oriented show).

Will people still care if most of the info is already released to the internet through the media-oriented E3? The vast majority never saw the previous E3s anyway.

Re:The Real action is at the GDC

[Anonymous Coward]

E3 became decadent. I was there working at the NCsoft booth and it really was ridiculous. Our stage act was The Mutaytor and they might as well have shut off their amps for how quiet they had to be on stage. There really were people at the edge of our booth space weilding decibel meters like tricorders, just waiting for any excuse to lower the boom. We really did work hard to keep everything within the new limits for noise.

But the whole Police State mentality of the thing just brought the scent of doom with it. How can you expect an entertainment industry trade show to survive if everyone is expected to be quiet? Well, welcome to the New E3, which might as well be a medical or insurance trade show with everyone all monkey-suited up carrying on in hushed tones around their tame, standardized booths.

Re:The Real action is at the GDC

[Anonymous Coward]

They split E3 into two events, E3 was mainly targeting media coverage for the new games,

The problem was so many people were faking their way in that media people couldn't acutally see the games they were meant to cover

E for All is meant to take up the slack between the public demand for E3 and the Media coverage the exhibitors wanted.

E for All 2007 takes place October 18-21, 2007 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
http://www.eforallexpo.com/

Any other opinions about what ESA needs to do or what the exhibiting companies want are just that, opinions, not facts^H^H^H^H^H^H faith based hypothesis like mine.

(I wish slashdot would support the <s> tag.)

Re:The Real action is at the GDC

[Castar]

"They" didn't split it. They shrunk it. The official E3 is the "real" E3, where the journalists, publishers, and most importantly, retailers meet and see new products.

"E for All" is the result of an events company seeing a hole in their lucrative conference schedule and coming up with something to fill it. Many other conferences are trying to do the same thing - they're hoping that their conference will be the next Must Attend event for the industry.

I think it was terrible and tragic for the real E3 to be canceled. Aside from the fact that I got to go on the company's dime, it was also the one time of year when all the people who don't know games would notice them, because of the regular network news covering the event. It was amazing PR for the industry as a whole. Now it's going to be covered only by the enthusiast press, because it's not a spectacle any more.

Re:The Real action is at the GDC

[dave1791]

But I don't see any "sneaking in" events. You pay your $45 and you can just walk in? What's the point?

hehehe- seriously, I wish them luck. It would be cool to see PAX become the next E3.

Re:The Real action is at the GDC

[Cassius105]

I agree, the only people who are really gonna give a damn about it now are us hardcore gamers who really know where to find this information anyway without some trade show.

The way they have done it has really knocked all the excitement out of the event, usualy when E3 comes around I warn all my flatmates that im gonna be downloading a shit load of stuff over the course of the week so the net connection is gonna be slow. Seen no real need to do so this year as it all seems a bit meh

Excuse me

[Anonymous Coward]

You appear to be off-topic. In the 70 words you posted, there was not one mention of horses, or even any allusion to the subject. I am disappointed. Very, very disappointed.

Re:Excuse me

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter how bad it is, sex with a mare is worse.

Re:Excuse me

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha, awesome

Re:Excuse me

[Anonymous Coward]

HORSEOME!

Pretentious article titles:

[UbuntuDupe]

A metaphor of a different understandability.

"Horse of a different color"? WTF?

Re:Pretentious article titles:

[PhoenixFlare]

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=2 0010430

It's a rather old expression, and one used in The Wizard of Oz, among other places. Learn something new, and quit complaining :)

Re:Pretentious article titles:

[UbuntuDupe]

Hey, just because it's an old metaphor, doesn't mean it's any good :-P

Re:Pretentious article titles:

[fbjon]

What do you mean? I'm non-english, I've never heard that expression before, and I immediately understood the meaning behind it. That's the best kind of metaphor!

Re:Pretentious article titles:

[Anonymous Coward]

It is THE BEST, you heretic

Re:Pretentious article titles:

[vigmeister]

I'm non-english, I've never heard that expression before, and I immediately understood the meaning behind it (Emphasis is mine.)

I think you have outlined cause and effect... hehehe... Actually, more seriously, I think non-native English speakers have a tendency to analyze the metaphor and grasp the meaning logically and this helps in the case of logical metaphors like this one. Then there are some metaphors that have to do with familiarity with the culture/geography/history of the language or just a good grasp of the language to understand them. Phrases like 'trojan horse' or 'emperor's new clothes' make no sense to people unfamiliar with the corresponding tales.

Of course none of this actually has to do with english being a native language. It probably depends on your social/cultural background more than anything else.

Cheers!

Re:Pretentious article titles:

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they mean brown.

My God

[TheThiefMaster]

At the time of posting, anonymous comments about horses outnumbered real comments by 11:1. Now it's 11:2...

Can we please stop anonymous comments for the first X (10, 20...) comments?

That said, I'm still interested in what's going to happen at this year's E3, hopefully it'll still be worth hearing about. If not, the GDC is looking to be a promising substitute.

Re:My God

[Anonymous Coward]

A boring article will almost always attract off-topic comments. It wasn't helped by their choice of a bizarre metaphor in the title.

I found the horse comments quite amusing anyway, certainly more entertaining than talking about E3.

Re:My God

[Ant P.]

Yeah, they really need to stop flogging a dead horse.

Re:Horse

[Anonymous Coward]

Beautiful, simply beautiful! That brought a tear to my eye and a bulge to my trousers.

E3's failure

[Aladrin]

I've been wondering how E3 was going to survive the specific non-invitation of everyone that cares one whit about it. It seemed they totally misunderstood what their show was actually about, and tried to jerk it back 'on course' without asking -anyone- what they thought.

I wonder exactly how surprised they are that their 'customers' no longer care? Publishers and developers can access the media -any time they want-. They don't need to pay thousands of dollars to set up a booth somewhere. On the other hand, to work the consumers into a frenzy, a big, semi-exclusive expo is great advertisement. They manage to get consumers waiting in line for pictures and crappy video clips to see exactly the same content that would have been available online, if the show didn't exist.

I'm guessing they thought that consumers would still be in a frenzy just over the name, and the reduced size and scope wouldn't matter.

There's a reason that every major developer was willing to pay massive amounts of money to be there. Reducing the price and forcing a reduce in size does not appeal to them as much. For smaller developers, it was a chance to get seen a little, and possibly get some free media attention by riding the coat-tails of the big guys.

Will E3 realize their mistake this year, and attempt to regain their status? Will GDC become the big show? Will the US gain another major game expo instead?

Everyone under the sun is offering official coverage of E3 this year, so I suspect that E3 thinks they can handle the issues without actually listening to anyone again. We'll see.

On the subject of horses... Are there REALLY people who have never heard the phrase 'a horse of a different color'? For those who haven't a clue, it just means that despite the name, it's a different. In other words: Even though it's called 'E3', it's not the same as it was.

Re:E3's failure

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more interested to see what games will be released next year. In particular, I'm hoping for a horse-based 3D shoot-em-up, or perhaps an equine side-scroller. I'd be quite happy to pony up the cash for either of them.

Re:E3's failure

[Anonymous Coward]

The next big show will not be the GDC. It will be PAX.

Re:E3's failure

[alvinrod]

I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. In your own post you point out that if people are not at the show, they'll be just as able to watch some of the content or read about it on the internet. In fact, there was a lot of things at previous E3's that weren't shown to the public and the press weren't allowed to talk openly about. I'd read some of the reports released about which games were going to be making the biggest splashes and some of the journalists would drop names that I'd never heard of because they weren't out on the floor open to the general public to blog about.

With a drastic decrease in the number of non-journalists and small bloggers, I think that reporting will actually be better. Instead of having to wait four hours in line to get a hands on impression of Wii games, journalists might only have to wait an hour, giving them more time to look into other games and products, increasing the total amount of reporting that they can do. For me this results in more total information being put out that I can gobble up.

I think that this actually might help out smaller publishers because after a journalist has seen all of the main attractions from the key players in the industry, they'll have some time to check out some of the other games at the show. If you don't need to wait several hours in line to get fifteen minutes of Mario Galaxy for a preview, perhaps you can check out what a small publisher is putting out and do some reporting on that as well. Just because there aren't throngs of casual gamers and people not as connected to the industry, doesn't mean that the media won't be able to spot interesting projects from new or small companies. Many of these journalists are also avid gamers of sorts with varying intrest.

I think that the Penny Arcade Expo does a much better job by being entirely for the gamer who doesn't have anything to do for the industry. The fact that some of the major companies in the gaming industry have decided to attend the event suggest that it can do a good job of emulating the part of E3 which will no long exist. E3 started out as a trade show for the press, drifted away from that, and is now trying to move back towards that. As I received all of my E3 information from the media over the internet or in gaming magazines, I can't really say that this is a bad thing.

*snort*

[Rob T Firefly]

Gamecock is even referencing that notion in its EIEIO event You've done it, Zonk - you've cured my case of the Mondays. Much obliged!

So, it's time for a new show

[Anonymous Coward]

with blackjack, and booth babes?

In fact, forget about the blackjack...

Re:So, it's time for a new show

[Anonymous Coward]

And horses. Don't forget the horses.

PAX

[Robber Tom]

Because of E3's idea to radically change itself, Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in late August will be the largest video game convention this year. I think (or hope, since I'm going to PAX) that there will be some things saved for the bigger and public convention later...

Re:Horse

[mdkess]

Sadly, this is the first thing that came to mind. http://www.somethingawful.com/d/second-life-safari /my-lovely-horse.php (Sort of NSFW)

Not my GDC!

[metroid composite]

Leave GDC alone! I don't want it to be marred by corporate meetings formerly associated with E3. I don't want it to turn into a plastic press conference. The sessions at GDC are actually useful.

Take over that new "E for All" that's supposed to replace E3...or possibly even PAX (attendance has been growing exponentially) but don't corporatize GDC, please!

Who Cares?

[morari]

E3 was a bore. It was all hype and online photo galleries of scantily clad women. Maybe instead of throwing all kinds of money away on huge, flashy, shiny exhibits, these developers could try making games that aren't redundant and cliche.

Re:Who Cares?

[KIFulgore]

What's more, developers always wasted several months of development team talent throwing together a semi-stable E3 build of a game. I witnessed it first hand as a dev team splintered into 2/3 "keep working on the main build" and 1/3 "fork off a kludge-o-matic E3 version." The E3 build took about 4 months to whip into shape.

The thing is, most of those 60,000 attendees would see a game crash and the write "OMGzor it is teh SUX!!!" on their crappy fan site. Now, at least, most of the attendees will understand what a 40% - 80% game is like, and that the crashes and debug dumps are expected (and even desired).

Horses or ...ponies

[Mathness]

E3 2007 - A Horse of A Different Color OMG ponies !!1!1111

Can anyone really take a chiding seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

...coming from "TheThiefMaster"?

Equine Entertainment Expo

[Anonymous Coward]

People yakkity-yak a streak and waste your time of day ...but Mister Ed will never speak unless he has something to say.

Gamecock?

[WML MUNSON]

Zonk, quit proof-reading posts with your eyes closed.