The Good

The Good

The new E3 won’t be full of people that don’t need to be there: Even though E3 was more strict this past May in keeping some unnecessary people out, there were still a ton of people that showed up that had no business attending the show (you know who you are). With this downsizing we hope that this new E3 will be more akin to what eFocus has tried to do in the past few expos. In case you don’t know what eFocus is, it’s a small independent media event that’s held alongside E3 in LA that has tech companies (most of which didn’t exhibit at E3) show off their wares to a select number of media. It’s actually quite an enjoyable side trip to the huge E3 show and it may be what the new E3 could evolve into; something that’s like a bigger version of eFocus but much smaller than the old E3 with game publishers showing off titles in meeting rooms at large hotels. No booth babes, no huge TVs, and not a lot of noise but a way for retailers and journalists to really learn and play the games that are scheduled to be coming out in the next year.

A good comparison in terms of the number of people at the new E3 would be the attendance at the pre-E3 press conferences for Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo in the past. The number of media at those events number 2,000 to 3,000. Add in another 2,000 or so for the actual publishers and developers who show up in those meeting rooms to show off their games and you have reduced the number of attendees by 10 fold.

Publishers can actually show off their games to the press: While the major publishers will always hold their own press events, the new E3 will allow them to show solidarity to the entire industry without having to deal with a lot of extra junk like noise, fancy exhibits and other distractions. Getting game journalists in one place to see all of your upcoming titles benefits everyone and it also allows the ESA to promote the industry as a whole.

Indeed we have seen a few smaller publishers over the years hold their E3 exhibits at hotel rooms rather than on the show floor as a way to both save money as well as avoid the huge noise factor. If the new E3 is going to be similar to those independent efforts we wouldn’t mind it one bit.

Other events will now get more attention: E3 has been such a huge event that most publishers have waited until the show for their really big announcements. With a smaller show, there may not be the need to wait for major game reveals at E3. That means other events like March’s Game Developers Conference, Germany’s Game Convention in August or event Penny Arcade’s PAX could become places where major games and hardware are revealed. Since many of these events are also open to the public as well, that means that the average fan could go to these events and get to see the games that normally would be first introduced at E3.


And what about the bad about downsizing E3?