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

[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

[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.

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.

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

[Ant P.]

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

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 :)

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

[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.

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...

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!