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.

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…

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.