General: Game Over for E3?

Stradden · July 2006

Next-Gen.biz is reporting that it looks like it's Game Over for E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), the popular industry show that takes place every year in Los Angeles.

According to Next-Gen, the decision appears to have been financially motivated on the part of a group of the show's larger exhibitors.

MMORPG.com will continue to follow this story as it develops.

Read the Next-Gen article, here.

MisterJaw · July 2006

Hallelujia! It's about time that the game industry got wise! E3 was only good for lighting a fire under devs' collective rears to bring something to show each May. Now we just need to sell the industry's heart and mind with a focus on SUMMER releases.

Christmas may be a great time for sales, but summertime bitching about boredom should prove just as viable an impetus to spend cash on games. Devs have gotten the wrong idea about their sales during the holidays. Of course games sell better during the holdiays when you frickin' keep targeting your release dates around the holidays!

There is a cure for the summertime blues.

I hope that the "Fig Leaf" event is small enough to draw in gaming companies that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford a spot on the previously bloated E3 floor.

DeserttFoxx · July 2006

I really wanted to eventually goto an e3 event, but maybe it would be for the best for ompanies to not waste money preparing for e3, and just take the time to pump the funds into their project. But it leads to another problem though, e3 was a great way for small companies to make an entrance, i wonder how advertising for upcomming mmos will work, maybe we will actually see a tv commercial in the near future heh.

Gonodil · July 2006

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx
But it leads to another problem though, e3 was a great way for small companies to make an entrance, i wonder how advertising for upcomming mmos will work, maybe we will actually see a tv commercial in the near future heh.

1) small companies get more press by putting out a quality game and getting it in the hands of reviewers and gaming blog writers, rather than having a "good game from a small company" blurb added onto the ass end of an E3 writeup.

2) SoE has already done some TV adds i think, for EQ2, definatly had commercials for it in theaters.

Im glad E3 is done, its such a dumb concept to think you will get awesome advertising when you're in a building with 300 competitors.

Like the auto industry and auto shows, while they are good places to get feedback and unveil new models, they know that to sell their product it needs to be in the spotlight....like in magazine articles or their own advertizements.

Darthorious · July 2006

Well I'm gonna go both ways on this one...

1. It's good because it will give the smaller game developers a much better chance to catch a break why? Because everyone seems to watch E3 and oohh's and aaahhh's over this games graphics or that games graphics. Then like sheep they all have to go out and buy it then get all upset when the only good thing about the game is it's pretty with no substance...now people will be more inclined ro actually research games as opposed to letting the industry re-search them for you and decide for the sheep which games they are going to get that year. I have played several off brand games will be beta testing another that are far better than what is on the market now and all of them from no name companies and without E-3 will make alot more profit and give the smaller companies the boost they need to expand and compete against the big boys...

2. The bad well I can say the big name companies will see an overall drop even more so than what they saw this last time around. They are all assuming that E3 is not helping sales and that is why they are doing this. Quite the oppisite though IMO the only reason they didn't do even worse this year was because they hyped certain games up to the public that turned out to be just another game with diffrent pixels. Good example was DooM3 when it was hyped at E3 had alot of friends buy it because of the E3 hype and all but one of them said the game was kind of boring and was nothing but another DooM not worth the time and effort they put into it. Me I just played the demo and that saved me the bucks. I guess this could be a good thing as opposed to a bad thing in the consumers eyes though. Will be 1 person buys the game and word of mouth will make it or break it.

thecandide · July 2006

Not closed.. just scaled back:
http://www.gamingexcellence.com/pc/news/200607311258.shtml

Hokie · July 2006

I always thought E3 was suppose to be the place where the press could go and try out all the up and comming games in one spot.
Well take MMORPG.com for example. Do you think they can afford to send a person to Norway to get some hands on play time with Age of Conan.
Or be able to send someone to Korea to try out a Webzen game?
Or to France for Ryzom.

No, I think all that were going to see is the big companys that spend millions of dollars to hype are going to spend less.
E3 should be about the small guys anyway, the ones who cant afford half nekked women and 60" plasma screen displays.

I think a big part of what has turned off the big guys is the fact they spend millions to impress the press and then a week to a month later read scathing reviews about the crap they're trying to peddle, because the press are calling it how they see it. Crap is still crap, doesnt matter if its covered in flashing lights and surrounded by pretty women, its still crap.

I think this reporter at Next-Gen is over-hyping.
MMORPG you should get you headline news from a more reputable source, one who doesnt sensationalize.
My opinion of course.

Destroyeron · July 2006

I do believe the Author is overhyping, however if E3 is dead: good.

shae · July 2006

Publishers finally getting tired of hearing their games suck... why make better games when you can just not show up?

Not all that big a loss though really, although I do see how this could hurt some of the smaller companies out there but then again, the booths were so expensive, as it says in the article it probably just doesn't make good sense going there anymore

ESA greed the guilty partie perhaps?

Mouserq · July 2006

This is just the big corps throwing a fit that smaller companies steal their fire. Maybe if they didn't plop steaming piles of shite on the floor of E3, they wouldn't have to worry about innovative and resourceful developers taking all the publicity. Now they just won't let anyone play with their toys.

This also cuts down on the effectiveness of smaller and more independent (ie not lapdog whores that give good reviews based on $) media agencies that cover the industry. Instead of being able to send a couple people to one event and get the gist of upcoming games, they'll now be forced to pay the travel expenses to more numerous and smaller events.

ltolman · August 2006

Ok so am I understanding this right; E3 will never make an appearance again? So like next May there will be no such thing as E3 2007??

CRAP. I dont know how but 2 years ago I heard about E3, last year in 2005 I was offered a E3 2005 disc that contained all the up and coming products from Gameboy to PC to XBox 360 (or whatever). I was anticipating E3 2006, sure I dont have the money to go but I was really wanting to know what games are coming out and was and still are asking Gamestop if they have any E3 2006 discs in.

So PC Gamer did a great article on E3 2006 and also Game Informer magazine and ya know what, if it wasnt for E3 I never would've bothered to check out games like:

Shooters-Crysis, Armed Assault, Huxley, Call of Juarez

Roleplay-Tabula Rasa, Elveon, LOTR Shadows of Angmar

Misc-Test Drive Unlimited, Alan Wake, Alone in the Dark

Already I want to reserve Crysis but I cant, I've already reserved Test Drive Unlimited for PC; and I'm still looking into more of Alan Wake, Huxley, Elveon (PS3 only, bleh), Armed Assault.

I always anticipate an E3; so now instead I'm gonna have to hear it when it gets closer to the release date??

Insane, ok media think about this. "A new game is coming out, an all out must see game. Joe Higgins goes to the E3 showing comes back saying how awesome this game is, meanwhile he had time to survey some of the other displays such as the new PS3 that he knows his brother will love. When he arrives home he tells his friend about the new game and then talks to the family about the new PS3. Ka ching, Ka ching, Ka ching; 4 members of his family is interested in the PS3, they tell their friends and their friends tell their friends......9 months later PS3 gets released and 40 buyers are awaiting at the front doors."

OR

Sony unveils the new PS3 May 2006.......4 months later they do an update to alert the media.......3 months later they do another media alert a bit larger than the rest and actually has a demo at a store; 1 month later PS3 gets released.........10 buyers

Point??? E3 is the best way to bring in customers, the best way to get word out about a new product, the best way to drool, anticipate, check the website nearly every other day, waiting, hoping and wanting that product especially when the product gets released months later the company will know they have 100 of Oblivion on reserve instead of 10 due to lack of media

Comments ended.

Elnator · August 2006

Bah, who cares. E3 is just a media event anyway. It ceased being 'important' in my mind several years ago.

Scallawag · August 2006

I have gone to E3 since the beginning. It used to be a real tradeshow, fairly low key with people trying to show off merchandise. Eventually it turned into a travelling cirus with a bunch of noise pollution and nerds with cameras walking around taking pictures of babes. I didn't even bother to go to 2006. The tradshow industry and signmakers are likely to be disappointed, though.

Some big releases I looked forward to at E3 over the years.

Everquest - Ruins of Kunark (was demoed there before release)

and Neverwinter Nights (after huge delays was demoed there...huge dissapointment)

Unreal Tournament, too

remny · August 2006

This is an interesting turn of events. Without a real E3 anymore focus will turn to other things and they will become just as bloated. Now we will just have to hear about the tokyo game show that much more.

I imagine that this was done not just because of financial concerns, but because of all the competition backlash of having all the major competitors in the same place.

Nintendo Unvails more Zelda and some mario with some harsh critisism. Sony unvails price and controller only to be compared to nintendo. Microsoft spends gazzillions of $$$ and even they must be directly compared to the wii and PS3.

Now what will happen is Microsoft, dispite complaining about how much this costs will probably throw some big annual game show for itself where it doesn't have to deal with direct competition.

Sony is still reeling from all the negative feed back of their price and I'm not sure what they will do.

Nintendo will continue to be arrogent and cut its own path, and we'll see how that works.

Meanwhile, it will probably happen that this will just give birth to a new video game show organized by some different group and hopefully it will be less commercial and gimicky. E3 never really was a good place for small developers to get their feet in the door, it was too expensive and they were too easily over shadowed by those developers with tons of money to set up huge gimicks and displays.

But in the end I'll reiterate, this is happening because of competition not money. These developers do not want to be compared side by side. That is why they feel the need to spend tons of money so that they can best those around them. So in that, I'm sorry to see E3 go because with all these game things in the same place and happening at once, it was easy to compare everything without a bunch of hype clouding the issues.

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