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Did E3 Just Gasp Its Last Breath?
Ian Lamont writes "This year's E3 is over, and there's already talk that this could be the last one. Even before the conference started, a slew of studios announced they wouldn't be taking part, citing high costs and other 'business reasons.' At the conference itself, 'there were no huge game announcements, and Microsoft didn't even bother having Bungie show up to talk about the next Halo release, claiming that the company wanted to "shorten the presentation."' Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello said he 'hated' E3's new format, adding 'either we need to go back to the old E3, or we'll have to have our own private events.' Crave also noted there are no solid plans for next year's show. On the other hand, people have predicted E3's demise in previous years, and they turned out to be wrong."
It is a good thing this is an online blog-style posting which contains links to the original news reports. If you're really in a bind, you could even open a new window (tab) and type E3 in your search engine of choice.
On the other hand, you could just stop being such a condescending prick.
My company (from Europe) has two annual shows in a niche industry (admitelly, not gaming, but I think this shows problem at large).
We went this year to Washington D.C. and we planned NAB in April as well. In Washington (February) our complete booth material was stopped on the border because "invalid paperwork". It turned out that the paperwork was OK, the guy shuffled the wrong papers. The goods were released... 5 days after the show ended. Total disaster. We consequently canceled NAB, to save ourselves the trouble.
We have decided to skip all future USA events and shift to Singapore / Asia because of:
1. complicated USA traveling
2. very low quality of services (80 year olds are guarding our equipment on the stand worth $100K+)
3. low level of organization (America trains robots, not employees!)
4. No business. In our eyes, it seems that the only B2B business from America these days is military one, commercial organizations anyhow buy anything / everything from China these days.
5. and above all, endless paperwork that is not required for anything but creating artifical jobs for minority populations so they can shuffle papers.
So, I am not surprised. Welcome to Europe or Asia!
COULDN'T care less!!!