Game Stooge

Ubisoft Doesn’t Like E3

• Scribbled on July 21st, 2008 by Jonathon Howard
• Filed in E3, Interviews, WTF

So E3 is over, what did you think? Too much, too little, surprises, disappointments? If you want to share please do below in the comments! Whatever you thought of E3 we haven’t heard much from those who pay for it, the members of the ESA, until now. Ubisoft Executive Director, Alain Corre, in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz gave his thoughts on this year’s E3. What did he think? Mostly, that it could have been better.

So what are his complaints? It seems E3 is the type of problem that just can’t be fixed. A few years ago, the problem was that it was too big, too crazy, they were letting everyone in. Now, the event is too small, and there are no retailers there or enough press to cover it. Alain spills, “There are no retailers at all, from anywhere on the planet — not even the U.S. retailers are there, and there are very few media outlets from outside of the U.S., even the mainstream media from the U.S. aren’t there.”

Perhaps that’s because with the advent of the internet, retailers can get all the info they need from a website without taking the time out to visit a noisy warehouse in Los Angeles?

Corre just doesn’t complain though he thinks he knows how to make it better, “What we would like, and we’re discussing that, is to have an E3 back in May with a bigger size,” he said. “It shouldn’t be at the same level [as 2006] because it was getting too big, it was a [madhouse], and the cost was too heavy for everybody. It has to be a reasonable size with some reasonable limits as to noise, attendees, or whatever, but with a bigger ambition than the one we have this year.”

Ah, so the answer is bigger but not too big, with a clarified answer like that I don’t see why the ESA hasn’t gotten it right already… Perhaps E3 would be better off if publishers and developers didn’t post everything on-line either, or allow their employees to… No point in spending all that money on a big press event, when a coder blew the story months ago on his blog, right? If it is a coder, half the time it isn’t some faceless person at the company but the marketing department and big-wigs that leak, and then they’re upset that no one cares about their tradeshow? If you want people to come, make it relevant, not bigger, or smaller, just relevant will do…

But then, you’ll lose out on all that free marketing too, and it would contradict Ubisoft’s claim they’re in it to win it.