No more E3?

    I can't be bothered rewriting my whole opinion as it's on my blog (see sig), but I am generally pretty happy about this. E3 is an exciting time of year for sure, but if its lack of domination means smaller shows can exist throughout the year then I'll be a happy bum.

    The phrase "E3 is dead. Long live E3." comes to mind. As the articles stated, there will probably be a new mini-E3. In addition, publishers will probably continue to seek out events (PAX, ComiCon, TGS, EGC, etc) to hype their products in this new vacuum. Or you might see more companies do what Nintendo and Sony have been succesful at with their traveling road shows.

    I will admit that I've cared less and less about E3 in the past few years. So much of the stuff gets leaked beforehand that you never get those "bombshell" moments that used to happen. Half the stuff on display is BS, and everybody just admits it with a nudge and a wink. Plus, I don't need gaming sites doing reports every 5 minutes with the latest blurry shots of some Namco poster or booth babe. I'd much rather see a setup where everybody gets their own keynote time followed by some pre-arranged "hands on" times.

    The show is part of the gaming culture, sad to see it go.

    Its their own fault tho. They all tried to overdo each other and spend more and more money each year and at the end they find out theyve hit the ceiling. Thats a smart strategy.

    Quote from KungFuSquirrel

    Yeah, because no other press events or game announcement presentations or publisher events or anything else require any amount of effort to put together.

    or vertical slices or tech demos or ...

    I'd first like to read that "official announcement" before I make up my mind about this.

    Maybe it was a ridiculous media frenzy full of unjustified hype and bullshit, but I'm gonna be sad to see it go (in its current form). I remember sitting up with my flatmates, watching BBC learning zone while taking shifts to shout out up to the minute news from E3 - its geeky, its unnecessary, but it was fun to get a buzz from gaming news in that way. There are gonna be benefits if game news trickles out more consistently over the year as a result, but I quite like everything hitting at once (even if that is less true now than it was in the past). Ah well, change is inevitable I guess. Woulda liked to experience E3 once though

    i'd imagine that there is a problem of the large companies dominating the event. when say, rockstar brings in coach busses, ea makes a gigantic fucking demo thing, the army does fast roping into the parking lot, and such, the smaller developers don't get attention which really hurts the spirit of the event. its more of a booth babes and play games on big tvs than a walk around and explore the cutting edge of games. but then again i've never gone

    I think in the long run it will be cyclical. I see more of a scaled back E3 next year and it will continue to be so until market forces push it back. It's all about cost-benefit, and if the befinit of spending millions on the show is simply not returned in press etc for a particular publisher, then eventually it has to catch up. If I spend say $10 million on the show but don't feel I'm really getting $10 million worth of value out of it for my company, why would I continue to do that? I admit there probably is some tacit collusion among publishers in that many of the large ones may be scaling back simultaneously, but there's really no harm to the consumer so who cares.

    On another level, I do think this is actually a good sign for the industry: less bullshit and more quality games. I think I've been to the last six E3's and every year it seemed the bullshit got crazier, highlighted by 2005 when you simply could not hear a god damn thing on the show floor. At least this year the noise level was down there crowd was a bit thinner so you could actually see more and play more up close.

    I'm wondering if this will all blow over and we'll see all the major players their next year except with smaller budgets and more of a focus on games and demos... :roll:

    I hope the new format will allow for more surprising announcements and unveilings. I remember when Mario 64 was first shown. It blew my mind how the little guy was running over hills, opening doors, jumping on goombas. People knew it was going to be shown and had seen some stills, but that was the first time the American press had seen the game actually running. We just don't get that anymore. One company leaks some shots so they can get some early buzz, and then 15 more follow suit. There isn't much at E3 that you don't know about by mid-April.

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!

Register Yourself Login