[E3 2022] Officially dead, but will return in 2023 AHAHAHAHA no it won't.

cloudeagle

Crossposted from Undead Scottsman in the COVID thread:

Undead Scottsman wrote: »

E3 pulling out

https://venturebeat.com/2022/01/06/e3-shifts-to-online-only-event-because-of-omicron-concerns/

E3 2022 will be remote again due to Omicron.

Though it being due to Omicron might be spin for the ESA abandoning a physical E3 forever.

https://twitter.com/Futterish/status/1479192501965762562

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1479194495111634949

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1479195903722414082

Futterish wrote:

This is spin. I heard from sources in mid-November, before Omicron's emergence at the end of that month that the ESA had abandoned their dates for the LACC.

Jason Schreier wrote:

Sounds like E3 is all but dead. Can someone else come up with an excuse for everyone to go to LA in June?

BTW, I 100% believe @Futterish's reporting that the ESA gave up on E3 months ago (there would otherwise have been dates on their website) over the PR fluff piece that hit today. No way was this a knee-jerk reaction to Omicron. It's E3 throwing in the towel

Jason Schreier writes for Bloomberg.
[/quote]

Totally agree the timing is very very weird, considering there's lots of time between now and then and there's still plenty of hope Omicron would burn itself out relatively quickly.

And yes, Jason Schreier is probably the best vidja game reporter out there.

urahonky

What is ESA?

Elvenshae

urahonky wrote: »

What is ESA?

Not much, what's ESA with you?

Real answer: Entertainment Software Association, industry trade group for the videogames: https://www.theesa.com/

rahkeesh2000

The real spin here is that E3 will not answer questions about whether there will even be a digital event. Venturebeat jumped the gun a bit here.

cloudeagle

Meanwhile Geoff Keighley posted this within hours of the E3 story:

https://twitter.com/geoffkeighley/status/1479193783879147520?s=20

Summer Game Fest returns summer 2022

I'll be genuinely surprised if E3 can manage to pull anything together considering their endless string of fuckups has annoyed just about everyone.

Undead Scottsman

Yeah, the current scuttlebutt is that the ESA isn't even trying to do an online event. We could very well be looking at the death of E3 this year.

It's not surprising though, Sony proved they didn't need E3 in the slightest, and I only think Nintendo has stuck around because they put out directs every few months anyway so might as well time one at E3. I feel like Xbox would continue to stick around, if only to wallow in the big empty space that Sony abdicated. EA Play was already divorced from E3 officially, and at some point these companies will just decide that sharing the spotlight is an old style of doing things.

I'll miss the big blitz of information, and the gathering of industry people. (RIP Giant Bomb E3 Couch). Curious what longterm effect this is going to have on the industry now that big networking events are no longer happening.

Jazz

I feel very fortunate that I got to go to E3 twice in the quote-unquote "glory years". When it was at its ridiculous, over the top best. When just the screen at the EA booth apparently cost a million bucks.

And when Kentia Hall was still a thing.

cloudeagle

I've heard that, at this point, the biggest loss from E3 going under is that it was a hell of an industry networking event.

I'm not sure if there's anything like it out there - PAX Dev maybe, but I don't know if it's got nearly the scale of industry representation, plus press is banned so they're out of luck.

BahamutZERO

GDC

PMAvers

At this point, I’m just expecting Devolver to announce they’re hosting their own E3-style event just for the hell of it and everyone can come hang out and dunk on Dave Lang.

Probably would have a better track record of not leaking media personal information to the world as well.

Polaritie

cloudeagle wrote: »

I've heard that, at this point, the biggest loss from E3 going under is that it was a hell of an industry networking event.

I'm not sure if there's anything like it out there - PAX Dev maybe, but I don't know if it's got nearly the scale of industry representation, plus press is banned so they're out of luck.

TGS?

BahamutZERO

The Tokyo game show probably serves a similar function for the japanese industry yeah

Brainiac 8

Honestly, in this day and age where two of the big three have decided to put out their own digital events throughout the year, E3 is a relic that I'm surprised survived this long. MS even dabbled in doing their own digital showings over the last couple years. The big companies don't need E3 to advertise their games, but unfortunately, E3 needs them. The third party companies cannot hold E3 up on their own. Big stage events just are not viable any longer nor are they necessary.

I'll miss having that E3 week that was all planed out, but not surprising that it might be gone from here on out.

Jazz

BahamutZERO wrote: »

The Tokyo game show probably serves a similar function for the japanese industry yeah

Is GamesCom or whatever it was called in Germany still a thing?

BahamutZERO

I vaguely have the impression gamescom is more of an esports event than an industry event but I'm not sure, never paid much attention to it

urahonky

I won't be too sad to see E3 go if there's a good enough replacement. I hope there's less bullshit in the Summer Game Show.

reVerse

Yeah, as long as someone's putting up some sort of show in the Summer months and we get a nice concentration of trailers and reveals, then it doesn't really matter if it's called E3 or not.

BRIAN BLESSED

I think there's basically 2 parts that we've identified here

The marketing bonanza that most of us care about, the consumer-facing stuff - that can easily be moved (and has been moved already, mostly) to an online format. Sure, there's something about that presentation that loses its charm by being a bunch of polished, prerecorded videos that a Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo technician pushes a button to stream rather than a live production with all the stress of a production team working to the bone to stop from all of it falling flat on its face. Having a bunch of devs and executives live on stage to a cheering audience makes all of it feel like a bigger deal than it actually is, and I will miss some of the fun of that.
But it's entirely possible to still make that period of June the same week where the videogame industry pulls out all the stops to amplify the noise for big announcements. I think in a sense Keighley saw the writing on the wall and took the opportunity to get his foot in the door, and even though I found the results of his last efforts pretty disinteresting he's in a position to really pick up the slack.

The networking opportunities in the backrooms are a tougher proposition and would probably require other adjacent expos to pick up the slack. Of course, those kinds of in-person opportunities are kind of moot in a pre-post-COVID environment, but I'd hazard a guess the general industry would like to have return to that kind of function in the future and it's clear that the ESA themselves are throwing in the hat on that.

Undead Scottsman

BRIAN BLESSED wrote: »

I think there's basically 2 parts that we've identified here

The marketing bonanza that most of us care about, the consumer-facing stuff - that can easily be moved (and has been moved already, mostly) to an online format. Sure, there's something about that presentation that loses its charm by being a bunch of polished, prerecorded videos that a Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo technician pushes a button to stream rather than a live production with all the stress of a production team working to the bone to stop from all of it falling flat on its face. Having a bunch of devs and executives live on stage to a cheering audience makes all of it feel like a bigger deal than it actually is, and I will miss some of the fun of that.
But it's entirely possible to still make that period of June the same week where the videogame industry pulls out all the stops to amplify the noise for big announcements. I think in a sense Keighley saw the writing on the wall and took the opportunity to get his foot in the door, and even though I found the results of his last efforts pretty disinteresting he's in a position to really pick up the slack.

The networking opportunities in the backrooms are a tougher proposition and would probably require other adjacent expos to pick up the slack. Of course, those kinds of in-person opportunities are kind of moot in a pre-post-COVID environment, but I'd hazard a guess the general industry would like to have return to that kind of function in the future and it's clear that the ESA themselves are throwing in the hat on that.

Don't forget the value of having a bunch of devs and journalists in one place, making it easy for interviews and previews to happen. It provided an important facet of E3, allowing for narratives outside of what was shown off during the press events.

Also we may never get another Phil Spencer/Jeff Gerstmann Giant Bomb interview and that sucks.

cloudeagle

There's also the real reason E3 was created, which was to connect game publishers with retailers to try to get them excited about selling their stuff. But that's much less important now that so much has moved to digital and the big publishers are putting out much fewer games per year. That might put the squeeze on the people who are putting out limited edition runs of indie games, but that's a fairly recent phenomenon that might not have relied on E3 much at all.

Polaritie

cloudeagle wrote: »

There's also the real reason E3 was created, which was to connect game publishers with retailers to try to get them excited about selling their stuff. But that's much less important now that so much has moved to digital and the big publishers are putting out much fewer games per year. That might put the squeeze on the people who are putting out limited edition runs of indie games, but that's a fairly recent phenomenon that might not have relied on E3 much at all.

Also, I think at this point game production has split into the major companies who can get all the shelf space they want and indies who are almost purely digital. There's some outliers to that still in the middle, but...

cloudeagle

Welp, it's dead. But the ESA is insisting it will return!

"We will devote all our energy and resources to delivering a revitalized physical and digital E3 experience next summer. Whether enjoyed from the show floor or your favorite devices, the 2023 showcase will bring the community, media, and industry back together in an all-new format and interactive experience.

"We look forward to presenting E3 to fans around the world live from Los Angeles in 2023."

If they can't get their act together this year, what makes them think next year will be any different?

AbsoluteZero

Ok now bring back Space World.

Syngyne

AbsoluteZero wrote: »

Ok now bring back Space World.

I thought Victoria Beckham wasn’t on board.



oh Space World

reVerse

I wish they'd reboot the Spice Girls, they were great.