Since 1995 the Electronic Entertainment Expo has been called the World Series, the Super Bowl and even the Olympics of the video game industry.
This past summer the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announced that it will scale back the annual three day mega-event into a more intimate conference between software and hardware publishers and the gaming media, as well as retailers, developers and other key industry members.
According to Douglas Lowenstein, President of the ESA, the event will remain in Los Angeles. While game demonstrations will still take place, the grandiose trade show environment that has become a trademark of E3 will instead be replaced by smaller meetings between industry audiences.
For most gaming journalists like Doug Perry, Editor in Chief of the IGN.com Xbox360 section, the news is a relief.
“For the last three or four years, people from all reaches of the industry had been complaining about E3. It’s too big, it takes up too much time, it’s too stressful. You don’t really need it,” Perry said.
“We couldn’t really get any good looks at anything, and a lot of the work was just preparation for it. It became five days where we would work 18 hours a day.”
Jonathan Metts, Director of PlanetGamecube.com and a seven year veteran of E3, shares the same sentiments about E3.
“They’re boosting the population at E3 so much, especially with the amount of people who are basically there to collect free stuff and walk around, that they have made it increasingly difficult for the professionals there to get any work done,” Metts said. “Most of the major publishers have sectioned off areas of their booths where they are quiet and sound proof so you can go in there and have private meetings and do game demos because it’s hard to actually get any work done at E3 properly.”
Although E3 is the biggest convention in the video game industry, it is not the only one. Other events such as the Tokyo Game Show and Games Convention in Germany garner international attention, though not nearly as much as E3.
Robert Khoo, Director of Business Development for internet gaming site Penny Arcade, sees these multiple conventions as a perfect outlet for the various needs of the gaming industry. Khoo cites the Games Convention as being developer focused, the new E3 as a media based conference and his own company’s Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) as a gathering for hardcore gamers.
According to Lowenstein, there is no longer a necessity for a gigantic gaming convention, such as E3, because of these multiple events.
Perry agrees with this notion but believes that these smaller conventions are not enough to garner similar attention from the mainstream media.
“I think that publishers already have enough events were they draw enough attention by the general and the video game media to focus on their games,” Perry said. “The question then is, is that enough attention to get them an online article or an article in USA Today? E3 always did that. E3 always drew all the headlines.”
Gamers who were hoping to Solid Snake their way into next year’s E3 should instead look forward to the 2007 of PAX, which according to Khoo, will be expanded by over 300%. Although the show is growing to a whole new level, the ‘for the fans, by the fans’ approach to PAX won’t be changing.
“The way the show is planned and run doesn’t change a bit,” Khoo said. “We’re still dedicated to serving the hardcore gaming market, and no outside force is going to mess with that.”
The debut E3 in 1995 was the most successful opening of a trade show in U.S. history, drawing to the Los Angeles Convention Center over 40,000 fans clamouring for a glimpse at the new Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo Virtual Boy video game systems. When it comes time to debut a new console, E3 was often the platform that you would see hardware makers shouting to the masses from.
The ESA plans to release more details on the changing face of E3 within the next few months.
PUBLISHED IN HUMBER ET CETERA 09.21.06
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