Slashdot Mirror
E3 - So, How Did It Go?
With all of the journalists at last week's E3 event home and rested, the post-game analysis is definitely something to take note of. The elbow room at Barker hanger was appreciated, but many folks were frustrated that the hotel and hanger format was hell on shoe leather. Despite that, everyone seemed to appreciate the ability to actually hear and play the games, even if it meant that they couldn't make it around to every single title this year. The only person I saw saying that the event was an unqualified failure was Michael Pachter, the well-known games industry analyst. Calling the event 'a terrible disappointment', Pachter lamented the almost complete lack of coverage from the mainstream press; a result of the removal of the public and consumer-focused elements of the show. For the views of industry heavyweights, Kotaku put the question to Sony's Jack Tretton, Microsoft's Peter Moore, and Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto. Their quote from Tretton summed it up nicely, I think: 'From a personal standpoint I think we need to figure out why we're doing E3.'
From a personal standpoint, they do need to figure that out. It's a waste of time and money for games that already cost too much and take too long to produce. If they really need to put all of their eggs in one basket and announce everything in one fell swoop of wasted efforts, then they could start their own individual conventions... It seems to work well enough for Blizzard and Id.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
"The only person I saw saying that the event was an unqualified failure was Michael Pachter, the well-known games industry."
Did anyone read this before posting it? I mean subtle spelling and punctuation mistakes slip through, but there's a freaking word missing here.
Michael Pachter, the well-known games industry.
You'd think he'd appreciate the event a bit more seeing as how it was thrown in HIS honor!
It was a waste of time where practically nothing was revealed from any company. They should either commit to a dog and pony show like before, or terminate this half assed abortion of an E3 entirely
spore decided not to show up, which means my long-hoped-for alpha leak didn't show up either. boo-hoo :(
-Yourmomisfasterthanabeowulfcluster
"From a personal standpoint I think we need to figure out why we're doing E3."
Yeah, Jack, I think you do. Could you also figure out what you're doing with the PS3 while you're at it, please? Because, to the rest of us, it looks like you guys don't have a clue.
Lies (that $1,200 bounty), deceptions (compatibility), misinformation (price cuts that aren't price cuts). Is there a Sony strategy in the pipeline that doesn't involve being dishonest with its customers?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
The only person I saw saying that the event was an unqualified failure was Michael Pachter, the well-known games industry.
Didn't the games industry put the show on in the first place? Why did he bother if it was such a failure?
Never underestimate the potential of Human stupidity. -Heinlein
He may be the only one calling it an unqualified failure, but he's not the only way to say it was horribly managed and very hard on the journalists.
Since the whole POINT of the show is now the journalists, shouldn't it have totally centered around them?
The big complaint: Everything was spread out. Every vendor had a different hotel, and the display hangar was 20-30 minutes away. There was -no- way to get to each conference on time, and people actually started to skip conferences that they didn't deem worthy of running for.
Several journalists also noted that you had to have an appointment to try a game and you were SOL otherwise. There was no chance to walk by a booth and suddenly find a great game that nobody else noticed yet. You HAD to know they existed, or at least that the company was worth talking to, beforehand.
The vendors loved the fact that they didn't have to move an inch, though some said "can't" instead of "don't have to".
All the vendors had a vastly scaled-down offering to show, and very few had anything that hadn't been already announced and releasing before year end.
Yes, E3 has successfully contracted their span and have very little to offer the gamers that wanted to hear news of their games. Unfortunately, the target audience (journalists) wanted exactly the same thing and also didn't get it.
So while it was not an 'unqualified failure', I think it still deserves the failure label.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
"From a personal standpoint I think we need to figure out why we're doing E3."
E3 still generated several front page stories *a day* on
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
My concern is that over the long run the big console makers and publishers will abandon E3. Rather they'll just host their own private events where they can schmooze their own had picked gaming media friends however they like. This would leave the smaller developers with no showcase to show their wears. Although for all I know this may already be the case to a certain extent... :(
Did anyone catch star wars the force unleashed? I'm quite looking forward to this game. I think it's gonna be THAT game which will make me finally buy one of the newer consoles. At this point I want something that'll let me play guitar hero :D
We came,we saw, we kicked it's ass!
E3 still generated several front page stories *a day* on /., and all the other nerd/gaming news sites.
Only because of the keynotes. E3 could just as easily have been replaced by Keynote Day, where all three console makers agree to give a "State and Future of the Console" address from wherever they were. At least from the public standpoint.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But this years E3 was great IMHO. We got news, got to see upcoming games, good PR events (I hate PR events, but I also like to find out wtf is going on in the gaming world and this is a good chance for that).
Old E3 was fun, but it was more about booth babes, and just handing random crap to thew 23458349589304 of people who showed up.
I foudn this E3 and from the few people I know who went, they all loved it. no more spending an hour fighting your way across the floor just to see something on the other side.
PAX is a more appropriate place to have people show up and just play the games, E3 in my mind was always and should of always been more about the companies themselves getting a chance to talk, etc.
As always tho opinions are like assholes and they all stink.
oogly boogly!
a more boring E3. Announcements about games we all knew about, Epic giving in to Games For Windows Live when they have complained so vocally about the 360 Marketplace, etc... First E3 in a while that left me wondering what I will play next year, or if I really care any longer.
If you are like me, which I suspect you are, then when E3 comes by every year, you simply visit IGN or similar, download some videos and read some editorials. I hear that for the journalists, this E3 was quite different. For me, and probably you too, it was quite the same.
Sony Fan Faire
From a consumer's standpoint, it was terribly boring. Most surprises you could count on one hand. Last year's E3 was much better, in my opinion.
But this year's E3 wasn't bad. It just seemed not to be... for us. Nintendo's presentation seemed especially aimed at investors and other developers. The sooner you can get someone to join your platform, the sooner you can have a lot of great third party titles, which has been a Nintendo console weakness the past ten years. The message seemed to be, "We're doing well. Developers, join us if you haven't already done so. It's worth the investment of time and money."
Sony's was actually wonderful, compared to last year's embarassment. At least most of the games announced seem to be available in the next 18 months and not years and years off.
Microsoft's I didn't see.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
What percentage of gamers actually care about E3? I'm willing to bet that less than one person in a thousand that plays video games paid any attention at all to E3.
I haven't done a survey, and I pulled the number directly from my ass, but I might even be overstating the figure. The vast majority of internet-connected gamers will base their game purchases on some reviews, and their console purchases on price and what their friends bought so they can play against each other.
E3 is only good for telling people what they already know. "They're working on MGS4! Maybe they'll show MGS4! Oooo - they showed MGS4! YAY!"
What's the point? The relatively tiny group of people who give a crap about E3 already know most of the info in advance.
Considering that about 80 percent of the game releases at E3 are for games that will release in October of this year, or next year, it's hard for the general gaming public to get excited about them.
And most of the "game demos" were actually films - not actual game play on a screen, but artificial film that may or may not be true to the real game play when it releases.
Just think of the hype for PS3 games - turned out many of those wonderful videos last year had zero to do with the final game release for the PS3 (all but two of them stunk to high heaven).
Same problem this year.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
...for two reasons:
(a) Boobies!
(b) Game announcements that blew my fucking mind. Everyone remembers the 2003 Half-Life 2 presentation for example, even if it was built on a pile of fake (eg. NPC actions unscripted my ass, but still.)
Let's look at the history of E3 (as I understand it, anyway) and try to figure out what it turned into.
In a nutshell, the Electronic Entertainment Expo was supposed to be a trade show. It was a place for producers, publishers, retailers, and hardware manufacturers to mingle and network, showcase products to one another, and set up business deals. (This is the point of a trade show, after all.) It was also a significant press event, where companies would go to make presentations and hopefully turn some heads, both to generate hype and impress people who might publish and sell their products. Since it was open to the public, the people who would actually be buying the games could see them first hand before they even hit store shelves, which was part of the reason E3 was such an effective hype-generating tool for producers.
Time passed. E3 got bigger, generated more hype, attracted more people, and became much less of a trade show and much more of a press and marketing event. This was cool and all for the fans and the event-goers, who came to celebrate their favorite hobby and get a first-hand peek into it's future, but for the purposes of doing business it became an expensive nightmare. This is why it was restructured. Unfortunately, this restructuring caused many usual attendees to avoid the show all together, and some others to openly question the new format. After you look at what really happened, it's easy to understand why.
Due to the new format - which, as I understand it, also practically excludes anyone who doesn't already have a strong foothold in the industry already - it became a still-expensive but very poor press event, and served as a trade show for companies that are already well connected. There really isn't a point to 'doing E3' anymore for the people who actually showed up. It no longer includes or interests the public, and the services it provides as a trade show aren't as important to the companies attending, many of whom could just as easily set up meetings themselves with publishers and retailers at a much smaller expense to both parties. It defeats the whole purpose of E3 as both a media event and a trade fair event, and if that conclusion is correct, there really isn't a good reason for the current attendees to support E3 in it's current format.
Of course, my understanding could be flawed. I've read a great deal about it and have tried to make sense of the new event in spite of conflicting accounts and widely varied opinions, but the one recurring theme I saw during this E3 was the big snore. All it looks like to me now is just another place to host an all too ordinary press conference, and a lame trade show for people who don't need trade shows.
E3 told the mainstream media that gaming was about fat teenagers playing violent games, and scantily clad booth babes. It was not good for gaming.