E3 Severely Downsized, Confusion Abound
- Scribbled on April 29th, 2007 by Devin Grimes
- Filed in Industry News
While it was announced several months ago that the spectacle known as the Electronics Entertainment Expo would be no more, we didn’t really know how drastic a change it would be. A confirmed list of exhibitors at the reformed expo has been making its way around the tubes of the internet, and the results might dishearten those hoping to one day make it to the media festival that is E3.
Falling from an impressive 400 exhibitors appearing at the Los Angeles Convention center to an extremely minuscule 33 appearing in a much smaller air hanger, the E3 summit suffers from a cloud of confusion as nobody is really sure how it will turn out, or how to cover the event.
What we do know is that the press coverage will be even more limited, with an invite only ticket — only dished out to some 4,000 journalists. Even worse, some developer’s PR agents are left in the dark. Joystiq dug up a blog written by Tom Ohle from Evolve PR who expressed this headache driven nightmare:
The event will still allow the industry’s biggest publishers to showcase their wares, while effectively cutting the legs out from the rest of the industry… think of every small company that spent a massive portion of their marketing and PR budget on a booth in Kentia, just so they could get to the one event that allowed them to show their products to a ton of media and retail buyers. Where do those companies go now?
Ohle brings up a good point…how will the smaller developers get the word out on their products? And don’t be so quick to think they don’t matter. One of the best selling games/franchises out right now — Guitar Hero quickly became a diamond in the rough in E3 2005’s overlooked Kentia Hall.
It’s certainly a buzzkill to see the end of the E3 era, but I can’t help but think that the decision to downsize was just poorly implemented. Only two months away from the premiere of the reformed E3, it’s already setting up to be a gigantic failure. They still have a shot of pulling everything together though, we’ll just have to wait and see.
(Thanks 1UP)
April 29th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Of those 400 prior exhibitors, how many were really integral to the industry? Probably the same 33 that will be at this year’s E3.
Small developers can get the word out on their products at GDC or other similar events. It makes no sense to require buyers, publishers, developers, and the media to wade through masses of people (lined up for free T-shirts or a glimpse at a MGS trailer) to attend meetings where we can barely hear anything anyway. No wonder publishers began to hold more and more “Pre-E3″ events each year. There were too many people at E3 who really had no business being there, considering it was supposed to be closed to the general public.
Less money spent on the “spectacle” that was E3 will hopefully mean more money spent on the actual games, and developers won’t have to take time away from their projects in order to throw together playable demos in time.
April 30th, 2007 at 7:52 am
E3 will indeed be quite limited. The GenCon event in Indianapolis (aug 16-19, IIRC) will have 200 booths for electronic gaming. Looks like the board gamers are picking up the slack.