Blog FeedEnd of E3
About freaking time! I was actually really surprised to see how many people were freaking out over the announcement that E3 was going to be cancelled and replaced with something of a great deal smaller scope. I know I don’t speak for everyone on this note, but it’s about time that this bloated show went away and didn’t come back. E3 had developed a gigantic cost both from the standpoint of putting on a show and from a standpoint of everything getting lost in the shuffle as the show had just gotten to be too big. If this report can be believed the announcement is set for Monday July 31st, the day the party stopped for business reasons.
I mean I want you to think for a second, think back to the last time you were really completely in awe of something you saw at E3. So how many of you are thinking of the Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 videos that first hit the web about 3 or 4 shows ago? If not those I’d really be surprised what it is you’re thinking of because since those shows, the show has really lost its magic. I mean if you look at what was a big splash this year it was the totally predictable games, Halo 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4. What’s worse is those trailers didn’t even show much of anything, they showed no gameplay footage. In Halo’s case it was like Cortana talking for a minute then you saw Master chief for a second. This isn’t compelling content folks, this is a whole lot of media hype over very little on display.
Meanwhile more interesting games like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, for instance, was buried to page 3 content. Halo 3 and MGS4 links absolutely stole the show, based on click through rates. A great trailer was showing off Quantic Dream’s new animation system for Heavy Rain which had a really interesting story; regardless it was totally buried at the Sony booth. Even journalists who were scheduled to see it didn’t get much of a taste as nobody was able to hear the narration.
What’s more the dollar costs of putting on a show at E3 keep going up and up and up. People expect bigger and bigger productions out of this thing each year and with those increasingly larger productions the cost keeps going up. It’s no longer enough to just have a great game and show it off. Publishers have to spend lavishly on their booths and in some cases they feel the need to have press parties and all sorts of other crap that doesn’t really have that much to do with the business of making games. Given that E3 doesn’t really generate that many sales in many cases, the whole idea of a lavish super-party for the industry seems a bad cost formula. All in all I’m not really sure why there seems to be so much gnashing of teeth over the end of E3.
31st July | Reply
The last thing that had me excited at E3 was actually the Supreme Commander footage which was shown just this year. Chris Taylor showed some excellent in-game examples showing what the game was capable of, and the sheer scope of the battlefield. I’m anticipating the game far more than anything else on the radar at the moment.
I agree with you though that the way E3 is structured and perceived at the moment isn’t very helpful, as companies scramble to present something to the press even if it’s nothing important, like the Halo 3 trailer.
I hope a smaller and restructured E3 will have some restrictions to make it more worthwhile. Such as not allowing developers to showcase a product until it is closer to being ready, and some actual examples can be shown to the press. None of this pointless trailer junk like Halo 3.
31st July | Reply
In principle the show is a good idea. The idea of bringing together developers, journalists and other companies involved in the gaming industry so that they can meet and show off the fruits of their labours is very good. Given the number of developers, imagine the effort required for the various journalists to travel the globe to see what is being made in order to report on them. Bringing everyone to one place gives everyone the opportunity to get some exposure and also to aid people in learning new stuff and general networking. In principle, this is good.
Well, so much for “in principle”. Practice has clearly shown that this does not happen in the way that we would like. Too much emphasis is given to displaying at E3 such that the work required for presentations actually delay the final product. I remember watching a documentary on the making of Halo 2 and the work that went into the demonstration that was so memorable but which was not actually part of the game itself. Further, as has been noted, many of the presentations are so much “smoke and mirrors” such that we probably know less about the real product (if there really is one) than we did before. Finally, and with no surprise, those who tend to do the best at these shows (more exposure, etc.) are those who have the deepest pockets whereas everyone else gets pushed to obscure parts of the show where they can be entirely missed. If smaller developers are being “lost” at the show then the question must be asked, “what’s the point of the show?”
This year I didn’t bother following E3 at all. Seriously, when you talk about the Halo 3 presentation I have absolutely no idea what you mean. In this respect the show has clearly lost all magic for me. The only parts of the shows that I tend to enjoy are the relatively dry presentations from the likes of Sony and Nintendo. Don’t ask why…
31st July | Reply
Having attended E3 this year for the first time, and having enjoyed the hell out of the experience, it might surprise you to hear me say that I’m neither upset nor glad. The show was a monster… a spectacle. I can fully see how after covering a few E3’s that you’d start dreading the next one.
One of my ambitions was to attend, and I did that at the last E3 ‘as we know it’… so I’m actually okay with the thought of the show going away. I achieved my personal goal and can say I was there at the last E3.
This year’s story was, of course the Nintendo Wii’s impressive showing. Super Mario Galaxy was many people’s game of the show, a game we hadn’t seen before E3 that had a very impressive hands on playable demo on the show floor. I don’t think anyone was expecting the Nintendo booth to squash the Sony booth, but the lines spoke for themselves.
I’m interested to know what’s happening to the show though, as well as why it’s happening. EA bombed at this year’s show. About the only EA games I heard people talking about were Spore on PC and Madden on the Wii. All the other games they showed off at their booth had no impact. Army of Two? Didn’t hear a single person talking about it, good or bad.
Now, EA have not long finished their own personal press event, ‘games of summer’ and had much better press from that, so I think it’s quite possible that they’ve only recently pulled out of E3 (as the rumours have them doing). So I totally get EA pulling out.
However, if it’s just EA that aren’t going to be there, while the biggest publisher being a no show is a big story, they may as well have been a no show this year.
Should it come to pass, I’ll mostly miss the three big console key notes going head to head and the one up man ship you used to get there.
However, I don’t know what smaller developers and publishers are going to do. Would press cover an event that didn’t have Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Capcom, Namco, EA, Activision, Konami etc etc? Maybe, but we’re going to have to wait and see whether that nets smaller people more or less press.
1st August | Reply
Of course there would be substantial press coverage of any publishers days of summer. Most websites spend months out of the year reaching for good content if every publisher had a little show it would be fantastic for the press. Rather than spending 3 days not getting any sleep at all, they’d be able to go down to an event every other week at a different publisher and get a good look at all there games. Magazignes could all get some nice cover-stories, websites could load up there site with previews, screenshots and video all in amounts big enough to drive traffic to there site but small enough so that there average reader could take it all in. I mean did anyone on earth read all IGNs or Gamespot’s E3 coverage? It was like 1,000,000,000 different previews, screenshots and videos far more than anyone could really expect to take in. I think most websites would love to have a day of exclusive looks at Eidos games or something like that. And really small developers would love to not have to spend so much to goto E3 and not get noticed anyway.
8th August | Reply
Does anyone get the feeling that this is a ploy for the biggest publishers to have absolute control over content thats seen by most game media? i just don’t think this is an absolute in good or bad, but rather its seems to be a solution to the overhype and cost, plus time constraints for reporters.Im wondering about E3 this year, it will be smaller yes, but will it be so small as to be dominated by the big corps? how will small companies be seen? over all i think this is a cop out for the large corps to get more control while spending less, if they do at all, which if they do dominate this next E3 while using the excuse of a small show to restrict small companies from entering, its not a fact they will sped less at all.Again, for every solution there are 2 problems, the first, building the momentum to move forward with implementing the solution, and the inevitable problem the solution will present in the future.