E3 Details: Attendance Slashed to 5,000. Held in Hotels in July
Industry reeling at drastic evolution
News of changes to the format of the annual Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) has been trickling in for some days, though the full extent of the proposed changes to be made by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) have left much of the games industry reeling, as a drastic slashing of the event is outlined.
The first and most startling news is the revised attendance plans revealed by the ESA. From an estimated 60,000 a mere 5,000 will remain, largely made up of core press with an established readership. The amount of 'press' clogging E3, as they update their blogs and fora, has reached comedic proportions in recent years. As a result, legitimate press are afforded little hospitality by booth reception. Indeed, a source of major frustration with journalists at E3 is the hostile attitude publishers' hired help adopt towards anyone with a press badge, leaving them to push through to find one of the friendly faces with whom they are scheduled for a meeting.
The acquisition of assets has also become increasingly problematic. With large corporate publishers being given preferential treatment that sees them have all assets from all publishers days before the event opens, other sites are left with a scrabble for content for rapid upload during the feeding frenzy. Asset discs, beta rolls etc are required. These are, of course, prized eBay material to some media outlets and therefore publishers have become reluctant to release them. Instead offering online, out of date, press kit fliers instead. We saw a senior BBC correspondent refused a beta tape this year because he could not match his request to a meeting in the publisher's system.
The reduced numbers mean the sprawling LA Convention Center will be sidelined. Instead, the show will be held in various as yet unnamed hotels around the city of Los Angeles. Exactly how this will play out was not elucidated.
The final big news is the May slot will be scrapped, with the baking month of July instead favoured by the ESA. The concept behind the date change is to align the showing of software closer to its (largely) December point of release.
The new name for the LA event will be E3 Media Festival, the name change has lead some to speculate that games might share the limelight with other forms of digital entertainment, which would be ironic - E3 was originally spun out of Las Vegas' annual Consumer Electronics Show. In reality, the new name is no more vague than Electronics Entertainment Expo, which could have always encompassed a larger range of entertainment products.
Expect further details as they come in.
The first and most startling news is the revised attendance plans revealed by the ESA. From an estimated 60,000 a mere 5,000 will remain, largely made up of core press with an established readership. The amount of 'press' clogging E3, as they update their blogs and fora, has reached comedic proportions in recent years. As a result, legitimate press are afforded little hospitality by booth reception. Indeed, a source of major frustration with journalists at E3 is the hostile attitude publishers' hired help adopt towards anyone with a press badge, leaving them to push through to find one of the friendly faces with whom they are scheduled for a meeting.
The acquisition of assets has also become increasingly problematic. With large corporate publishers being given preferential treatment that sees them have all assets from all publishers days before the event opens, other sites are left with a scrabble for content for rapid upload during the feeding frenzy. Asset discs, beta rolls etc are required. These are, of course, prized eBay material to some media outlets and therefore publishers have become reluctant to release them. Instead offering online, out of date, press kit fliers instead. We saw a senior BBC correspondent refused a beta tape this year because he could not match his request to a meeting in the publisher's system.
The reduced numbers mean the sprawling LA Convention Center will be sidelined. Instead, the show will be held in various as yet unnamed hotels around the city of Los Angeles. Exactly how this will play out was not elucidated.
The final big news is the May slot will be scrapped, with the baking month of July instead favoured by the ESA. The concept behind the date change is to align the showing of software closer to its (largely) December point of release.
The new name for the LA event will be E3 Media Festival, the name change has lead some to speculate that games might share the limelight with other forms of digital entertainment, which would be ironic - E3 was originally spun out of Las Vegas' annual Consumer Electronics Show. In reality, the new name is no more vague than Electronics Entertainment Expo, which could have always encompassed a larger range of entertainment products.
Expect further details as they come in.
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Comments
editor 2 Aug 2006 09:12
1/5
I think some reality is needed here.
The web news feeds need to eat some humble pie over the E3 news. When the story of E3 crumble broke in other sources they either ignored it or called it rubbish. Now the facts have proven these sources correct, these 'news'! sites are doing eveything they can to hide the fact.
This stinks, console gaming is in big trouble and the consumer games press seems to be fiddling!
- Console magazine sales down.
- E3 emasculated.
- Game sales down.
This can't all be players waiting for next-gen!
Lets hope they are a bit more honest about the state of the market after the PS3 launch in November!
The web news feeds need to eat some humble pie over the E3 news. When the story of E3 crumble broke in other sources they either ignored it or called it rubbish. Now the facts have proven these sources correct, these 'news'! sites are doing eveything they can to hide the fact.
This stinks, console gaming is in big trouble and the consumer games press seems to be fiddling!
- Console magazine sales down.
- E3 emasculated.
- Game sales down.
This can't all be players waiting for next-gen!
Lets hope they are a bit more honest about the state of the market after the PS3 launch in November!
Joji 2 Aug 2006 11:15
2/5
60k to 30k I could understand, but to as little as 5k sounds crazy to me. These top dollar industry bitches earn more money than I will ever see, and E3 is once a year, all of a sudden its too much for them to do.
They are trying to hard to hide the fact E3 is rubbish at filleting the press bones from the fish. Get rid of Kentia Hall perhaps and use that space for something else.
Sounds stupid moving the thing from the cooler month of May to the height of summer in July, especially when those lucky 5000 are gonna be indoors.
What will they do if it turns out to be worse with so few people?
They are trying to hard to hide the fact E3 is rubbish at filleting the press bones from the fish. Get rid of Kentia Hall perhaps and use that space for something else.
Sounds stupid moving the thing from the cooler month of May to the height of summer in July, especially when those lucky 5000 are gonna be indoors.
What will they do if it turns out to be worse with so few people?
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Dreadknux 2 Aug 2006 11:28
3/5
Well it's a kinda rubbish, but necessary change I guess. When you consider God knows how many 'journalists' are heard to end up in E3 it's no wonder they want to try and cut down on the number of people being let in.
They really need a way to determine who should be privelidged enough to enter E3 and who's just there for the ride. It may suck to those with fansites or blogs or online TV game shows (unless you're Consolevania, otherwise you should be allowed entry everywhere) but too many attendees has proved to saturate the industry event, somewhat. I think fansites and - let's face it - people who shouldn't be there can handle adding assets to their pages after the big boys do so.
They also need a way to sort out assets properly, sharpish. Preferential treatment is a bit harsh when they downsize the event to limited numbers. I understand the need for the physical event to be downsized, but meet everyone else in the middle, surely.
If it's going to be hosted in various hotels, does this mean that different publishers will be hosted on different days, or will all publishers be dotted around many locations? Because the former would be fairer to allow better coverage and attention for the smaller dev's and pub's, but the latter would just be a bigger pain in the ass I'm sure.
My question is whether SPOnG will still be able to attend? Considering its main port of business outside the whole journalism front-end, I'm sure something can be SWUnG.
They really need a way to determine who should be privelidged enough to enter E3 and who's just there for the ride. It may suck to those with fansites or blogs or online TV game shows (unless you're Consolevania, otherwise you should be allowed entry everywhere) but too many attendees has proved to saturate the industry event, somewhat. I think fansites and - let's face it - people who shouldn't be there can handle adding assets to their pages after the big boys do so.
They also need a way to sort out assets properly, sharpish. Preferential treatment is a bit harsh when they downsize the event to limited numbers. I understand the need for the physical event to be downsized, but meet everyone else in the middle, surely.
If it's going to be hosted in various hotels, does this mean that different publishers will be hosted on different days, or will all publishers be dotted around many locations? Because the former would be fairer to allow better coverage and attention for the smaller dev's and pub's, but the latter would just be a bigger pain in the ass I'm sure.
My question is whether SPOnG will still be able to attend? Considering its main port of business outside the whole journalism front-end, I'm sure something can be SWUnG.
SPInGSPOnG 2 Aug 2006 13:21
4/5
editor wrote:
This stinks, console gaming is in big trouble and the consumer games press seems to be fiddling!
- Console magazine sales down.
- Console magazine sales down.
But they are f**king dire. They don't know their audience, they suck up to the publishers like whores,a nd they break news late. The only reason they are on time with reviews is because they play good scores and advertising discounts against early code.
- E3 emasculated.
But it WAS a joke. 45,000 teenagers pretendingt o be legitimate press, all looking to have their photograph taken with a REAL woman, or to get something to sell on eBay. There's still the oppportunity to pull a good show out of the hat, but 5,000 people tearing round mid-summer LA in taxis won't be it.
- Game sales down.
Really? Are they, really? But it is a transition year, and originality is at an all time low as corporations fear innovation for fear of failing to delver shareholder value.
Lets hope they are a bit more honest about the state of the market after the PS3 launch in November!
Who are "they"?
LUPOS 2 Aug 2006 13:24
5/5
Svend Joscelyne wrote:
My question is whether SPOnG will still be able to attend? Considering its main port of business outside the whole journalism front-end, I'm sure something can be SWUnG.
Well if you fellow cant get us in my company may actually be able to attand in exhibitor form next year. If all we need is to get a nice hotel suit for a few days to show some demos to the press then E3 suddenly seems much mroe accesable. As i said before i would rather not show at all the show at kentai hall.
At any rate theres about a 90% chance that i'll be there in some capacity.
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