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E3 Opening up its doors to the public?
noir_blood
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I think everyone that visits this forums knows about E3 right? Some might have even been lucky to attend prior E3's before it became invitation only.
This last few years haven't exactly been kind to the new, smaller E3, with the reception at best being a giant 'meh', and at worst developers and industry leaders feeling that the show should not continue.
Now there's talk, reported by Newsweek's N'Gai that the Entertainment Software Association, the group behind E3 will have a big announcement tomorrow. And what could that be? N'Gai's sources indicate that next year's E3 will be open to the public, with a cap of 40,000.
What's everyone's thoughts on this? I managed to go to a few E3, back when all it took to get in was working for a video store, and I really enjoyed the sights and sounds(then again, I wasn't worrying about deadlines and interviews). I think gamers certainly do need a videogame convention that could compare to the toky game show, either E3 or PAX might end up becoming it.
This last few years haven't exactly been kind to the new, smaller E3, with the reception at best being a giant 'meh', and at worst developers and industry leaders feeling that the show should not continue.
Now there's talk, reported by Newsweek's N'Gai that the Entertainment Software Association, the group behind E3 will have a big announcement tomorrow. And what could that be? N'Gai's sources indicate that next year's E3 will be open to the public, with a cap of 40,000.
Level Up has just learned that after long, bruising and politically difficult negotiations, the Entertainment Software Association is preparing to announce tomorrow that E3 2009 will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center during the first week of June--and that for the first time, E3 will officially open its doors to the public at large. According to a source close to the process, the convention floor and meeting rooms will open on Tuesday June 2nd to media and industry professionals. On Friday June 5th and Saturday June 6th, however, the show floor will open up to the public. What about the famous press conferences from Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, along with a handful of third party publishers? Our source told us to "expect a boat load of press conferences on Monday during the day and on Tuesday morning."
Internally, the ESA and its members are referring to the event as a "prosumer show," a term our source found puzzling. Presumably it refers to the ESA's intent to reach out to not necessarily the world at large, but to media, industry professionals and the most avid gamers. For while attendance is expected to rise dramatically from the 2008 show, our source informed us that the ESA is aiming to cap next year's attendance at 40,000. That's significantly less than the record 70,000 people that attended E3 in 2005, and it's also less than the nearly 60,000 people who attended this year's Penny Arcade Expo in August in downtown Seattle.
What's everyone's thoughts on this? I managed to go to a few E3, back when all it took to get in was working for a video store, and I really enjoyed the sights and sounds(then again, I wasn't worrying about deadlines and interviews). I think gamers certainly do need a videogame convention that could compare to the toky game show, either E3 or PAX might end up becoming it.
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But man, if they did open it up...
Seriously? Because good reviews = good money, and you can pay the media to make you look good.
Especially game reviewers, present company excepted of course.
I never finish anyth
Word of mouth can still work wonders.
Besides, I sure preferred playing Project Origin in person rather than reading about it.
I'd argue that word of mouth is far more powerful, as is engaging the gamers directly. And then there's brand loyalty (not console brand, but game series brand).
And there are so many cases of a well reviewed game doing poorly.
Word of mouth is more powerful provided you have a product people want. But why run the risk of seeming mediocre when you can pay a game "journalism" magazine to give you 10s across the board?
EDIT: But I didn't mean to throw this thread completely off-topic. I think game journalism is a complete joke and that the industry as a whole should feel disgusting for common practices like bribery.
Yeah, what I got from the article was that they were going back to the half-assed vetting they did before, IE gamestop employees and bloggers
Is a convention circus the best way to generate word of mouth or make an impression on gamers? The TGS is a much bigger show than PAX, in a relatively compact country (i.e., not spread as far apart as the US, where people will complain no matter where you hold your convention), but Nintendo has typically not bothered to attend and they don't seem to have any trouble getting the word out.
If you're talking about people who hang around on message boards, all you have to do to reach gamers is put out some screenshots/movies, maybe make a demo, and talk up your game a little. Anyone else, I don't know that they would really care.
Sometimes there are no second chances in things like this. If they are lucky they will get one.
e3 will still have that marketing spiel for the 3 hardware manufacturer announcements but like this year and last, everything we see on the show floor will be old.
I mean other than the FF13 on 360 announcement what came out of this years e3 that we didn't get elsewhere direct from the publisher.
Having one centralised game show is so bad for the developers and publishers that I don't think e3 can recover even if it is open to the public.
Too expensive, too much hype, too much pressure.
We as gamers are better off when devs dont have to spend 3 months out of a game development just on a special e3 demo. When you show things to the press you can show vertical slices in development without any hyperbole and 'OMG IT LOOKS SHIT' retardo stuff from idiotic gamers.
What Scarab said. TGS has been way more informative than E3 has been. It's almost as if E3 is like a business meeting the media is invited to participate in. "Okay gang, here's our game plan for this year and our target audience!"
It also doesn't help them that every single year, all the announcements get leaked in some sort of fashion, so people are already expecting what to see.
this year it was that PR agency accidentally releasing all those files.
Accidentally my ass. :P
Well, Thats what E3 is supposed to be. A trade show. They started showing stuff that the average joe wanted to see and wanted to preview. Then they fucked it all up and E3 became no longer viable as a consumer show.
E3 need to not do E4ALL and make a solid, well rounded show thats not full of PR bullshit. I figure their only chance is to emulate PAX and make it about the show and not about making $$$ out of it.
Really? Psychonauts says no. So do System Shock2, and Deus Ex.
The inverse is also false... bad reviews =! bad money. See: 50 Cent.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
E3 has been, first and foremost, a trade show. As in a show for people in the trade. I can't remember where I heard it, but someone summed it up best when they said the most important person at E3 is the lead buyer for Wal-Mart. Compared to that, Ben, you (and the other journalists) are just a sideshow that they tolerate because they need you for buzz.
(Personally, I like the PAX approach to media - media passes get you in the door, and access to the facilities that help you do your job - and that's it.)
Edit: Ben's four "fixes" are utterly ridiculous:
That's because that's exactly what E3 is. It's a trade show that the press gets invited to because they're useful.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/921/921910p1.html