Lowenstein
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has moved to quash rampant gossip foretelling the cancellation of next year's Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3), outlining a streamlined event aimed at cutting attendee costs and minimising civilian footfall.
As you'll be aware from our news yesterday, various industry sites claimed to have the scoop on a complete cancellation of the event, something that seemed highly unlikely at best. The ESA reacted today, offering the official line on what many expected. E3 will simply shrink from the monster it had become.
“The world of interactive entertainment has changed since E3Expo was created 12 years ago. At that time we were focused on establishing the industry and securing orders for the holiday season,” said Douglas Lowenstein, President of the ESA. “Over the years, it has become clear that we need a more intimate program, including higher quality, more personal dialogue with the worldwide media, developers, retailers and other key industry audiences.”
The move is clearly aimed at reducing the level of fan interest in the event, perceived as a problem by some, a blessing by many. The fans making the pilgrimage to E3 do add colour to the event and arguably make it the spectacle it has built into. It's also worthy of note that publishers court these fans aggressively, offering freebies and giveaways that would have little to no interest to most professional attendees, most of whom have desks laden with the plastic trimmings of every videogame release.
Lowenstein continued, "E3Expo remains an important event for the industry and we want to keep that sense of excitement and interest, ensuring that the human and financial resources crucial to its success can be deployed productively to create an exciting new format to meet the needs of the industry. The new event ensures that there will be an effective and more efficient way for companies to get information to media, consumers, and others."
We contacted the ESA, today for comment, though had not had an official reply at time of press.
As you'll be aware from our news yesterday, various industry sites claimed to have the scoop on a complete cancellation of the event, something that seemed highly unlikely at best. The ESA reacted today, offering the official line on what many expected. E3 will simply shrink from the monster it had become.
“The world of interactive entertainment has changed since E3Expo was created 12 years ago. At that time we were focused on establishing the industry and securing orders for the holiday season,” said Douglas Lowenstein, President of the ESA. “Over the years, it has become clear that we need a more intimate program, including higher quality, more personal dialogue with the worldwide media, developers, retailers and other key industry audiences.”
The move is clearly aimed at reducing the level of fan interest in the event, perceived as a problem by some, a blessing by many. The fans making the pilgrimage to E3 do add colour to the event and arguably make it the spectacle it has built into. It's also worthy of note that publishers court these fans aggressively, offering freebies and giveaways that would have little to no interest to most professional attendees, most of whom have desks laden with the plastic trimmings of every videogame release.
Lowenstein continued, "E3Expo remains an important event for the industry and we want to keep that sense of excitement and interest, ensuring that the human and financial resources crucial to its success can be deployed productively to create an exciting new format to meet the needs of the industry. The new event ensures that there will be an effective and more efficient way for companies to get information to media, consumers, and others."
We contacted the ESA, today for comment, though had not had an official reply at time of press.
Companies:
CESA
Read More Like This
Comments
thane_jaw 1 Aug 2006 09:26
1/17
It just seems crazy that Nintendo spent upwards of $20 million to let people stand in line for 3 hours. I think gamespot said they could have flown every journalist out to their headquarters and shown them the Wii personally for that.
Does this mean that Spong won't get to go next year?
Does this mean that Spong won't get to go next year?
DoctorDee 1 Aug 2006 10:53
2/17
thane_jaw wrote:
Does this mean that Spong won't get to go next year?
Why would it mean that? They say they want "including higher quality, more personal dialogue with the worldwide media"
We're worldwide media.
more comments below our sponsor's message
YenRug 1 Aug 2006 12:48
3/17
What's with the mis-representing of other sites, on this story? From what I read elsewhere, they all generally stated that the existing set-up was being dropped and it was likely a smaller appointment based alternative was the likely replacement; strangely enough, that's what has happened, so why have you stated otherwise in two articles, now?
thane_jaw 1 Aug 2006 12:54
4/17
DoctorDee wrote:
Why would it mean that? They say they want "including higher quality, more personal dialogue with the worldwide media"
We're worldwide media.
It was more of a general question about the less mainstream game journalism. The name's also going to be changed to the "E3 Media Festival" which doesn't sound all that focused on games. If this is the case and they're reducing the number of attendents from 60,000 to 5000 as has been suggested by Lowerstein in the Wall St Journal then there's someone who's not going to get to go. It just seems as though once you've factored in the major developers, publishers and more mainstream game journalism sites and magazines (such as the Ziff Davis group and IGN) and CNN and all the other mainstream journalism then I can't see that leaving much more room for the smaller gaming sites.
DoctorDee 1 Aug 2006 13:02
5/17
thane_jaw wrote:
once you've factored in the major developers, publishers and more mainstream journalism sites and magazines (such as the Ziff Davis group and IGN) then I can't see that leaving much more room for the smaller sites.
Yeah. We're one of the bigger smaller sites.
Plus I can't see it making sense at 5,000. It needs to be 15-20,000 to make sense. If it really is 5,000 that'll just be IGN and that's it.
There already way too much colusion between the industry and the corporate press... Most everything you see in the publicly listed press is written with advertising revenue and profit in mind.
SPInGSPOnG 1 Aug 2006 13:09
6/17
YenRug wrote:
What's with the mis-representing of other sites, on this story?
Next Gen were pretty gung-ho about the death of E3 yesterday. They've wound back a bit now...
They're accusing ESA of spinning it, but they are spinning it just as much... They're original headline was "E3 Finished as Big Exhibs Pull Support"
There's a big difference between "E3Finished" and "E3 Changing to be More Industry Focussed."
thane_jaw 1 Aug 2006 13:27
7/17
DoctorDee wrote:
Yeah. We're one of the bigger smaller sites.
Plus I can't see it making sense at 5,000. It needs to be 15-20,000 to make sense. If it really is 5,000 that'll just be IGN and that's it.
I didn't say you weren't, I was just pointing out that at 5000 "industry insiders" competition for journalist passes would be competitive unless you were, as you put it, IGN.
I guess this a mute point until the ESA reveals any more information, just read an interview with Lowenstein where he goes back on himself and says that they need to find a venue first before releasing any numbers. Bleurgh.I suppose the only people this will really negatively affect is the smaller developers, everyone else will just ship the journos out as and when.
DoctorDee wrote:
There already way too much colusion between the industry and the corporate press... Most everything you see in the publicly listed press is written with advertising revenue and profit in mind.
Since Dan Schu's rant about this there's been a huge rash of features and editorials on the state of gaming journalism. I think that the importance of the smaller more indie sites is going to grow until the larger sites stop relying on "insider" crap and s**tty exclusives to sell their online and print services. The sooner the merrier.
On an interesting side note about advertising revenue and profit, EA, in the states, are teaming up with ESPN to offer a pay per view coverage of the new Madden with "exclusive" tips by play testers on how to play the game before anyone else. Its priced, at the bargain sum of $20. Only 1/3 of the retail price of the game to watch someone else play it and patronize you at the same time.
YenRug 1 Aug 2006 13:49
8/17
Rod Todd wrote:
YenRug wrote:
What's with the mis-representing of other sites, on this story?
Next Gen were pretty gung-ho about the death of E3 yesterday. They've wound back a bit now...
They're accusing ESA of spinning it, but they are spinning it just as much... They're original headline was "E3 Finished as Big Exhibs Pull Support"
There's a big difference between "E3Finished" and "E3 Changing to be More Industry Focussed."
Strange, when I read their piece on Sunday it pretty much said what's come to pass... admittedly, they refer to a previous story, but I'm sure there's nothing stopping anyone updating an editorial as they gather more info. Either way, their piece was posted on Sunday and it's taking most sites a couple more days to get up to speed on it.
LUPOS 1 Aug 2006 13:55
9/17
thane_jaw wrote:
Since Dan Schu's rant about this there's been a huge rash of features and editorials on the state of gaming journalism. I think that the importance of the smaller more indie sites is going to grow until the larger sites stop relying on "insider" crap and s**tty exclusives to sell their online and print services. The sooner the merrier.
Point of interest, i have a few friends at some of the more well respected indie sites/blogs/podcasts out there and in the last year or so MS has actually been courting the hell out of them. Its a bit of an internal experiment they are running at the moment that seeks to prove that word of mouth spread through the "hard core" is probably more valuabel than any amount of advertising. Personaly i think MS doesnt see as much need for the likes of IGN and there masssive bandwidth since xbox live alows for free video and demo downloads so they are looking to buddy up with the "indie" news sites. Either way they had an event pre-GDC this year that i (representing spong) was unabel to get into but these others guys did... we where to big to be of interest but not big enough to garauntee entrance. odd.
___________
SPInGSPOnG 1 Aug 2006 13:57
10/17
YenRug wrote:
I'm sure there's nothing stopping anyone updating an editorial as they gather more info.
of course not. But when you have to update to cover your own blunder...
"They decided that, without the support of the larger software publishers and hardware manufacturers, there would be no point in continuing."
Future in the UK took over the Edinburgh International Games Festival... I'm sure in the US they'd love to pronounce E3 dead and stage their own show. After all, they can't make money in magazines anymore... Shoulda held onto those editorial principles instead of selling out (literally and figuratively) for the big bucks...
LUPOS 1 Aug 2006 15:15
11/17
Rod Todd wrote:
Future in the UK took over the Edinburgh International Games Festival... I'm sure in the US they'd love to pronounce E3 dead and stage their own show.
Digital Life has been gettign bigger and bigger each year. With e3 now smaller and in the summer a winter time show in NYC seems a fair bet to get soem added attention. While id be glad to get some worth whiel news and entertainment without flying across the country soem times it woudl be said to see e3 take a back seat to a ziff event :/
__________
thane_jaw 1 Aug 2006 15:46
12/17
LUPOS wrote:
Point of interest, i have a few friends at some of the more well respected indie sites/blogs/podcasts out there and in the last year or so MS has actually been courting the hell out of them. Its a bit of an internal experiment they are running at the moment that seeks to prove that word of mouth spread through the "hard core" is probably more valuabel than any amount of advertising. Personaly i think MS doesnt see as much need for the likes of IGN and there masssive bandwidth since xbox live alows for free video and demo downloads so they are looking to buddy up with the "indie" news sites. Either way they had an event pre-GDC this year that i (representing spong) was unabel to get into but these others guys did... we where to big to be of interest but not big enough to garauntee entrance. odd.
___________
I know from various podcasts that MS have been making inroads with that - specifically things like the bloggers bus at last E3 and members of Microsoft's Xbox division jumping on any podcast that'll take them.
Personally I welcome this community orientated marketing from MS, I'm probably just kidding myself but it makes me feel slightly warmer and fuzzier inside. I am suprized spong didn't get into that pre-GDC event, especially seeing as Moore likes to namedrop the site whenever he's talking about how in touch with the community he is.
LUPOS 1 Aug 2006 15:57
13/17
thane_jaw wrote:
I am suprized spong didn't get into that pre-GDC event, especially seeing as Moore likes to namedrop the site whenever he's talking about how in touch with the community he is.
not that we where dismissed from it completely but i heard about it kind of late and it was a pretty smallish event so they coudlnt do much for me when i got in touch 3 days prior. I was sure to give mrs PR a good ribbing about it so i shant be overlooked in the future hopefully ;)
Plus last minute planning seems to be a SPOnG "thing".
warbaby 1 Aug 2006 16:04
14/17
E3 did die. Even though the show will continue, it really won't be the same.
To me E3 is always this insane rush of gaming goodness being crammed into a hectic few days. If E3 isn't busy, crazy, and exciting, it might as well be a large press release.
To me E3 is always this insane rush of gaming goodness being crammed into a hectic few days. If E3 isn't busy, crazy, and exciting, it might as well be a large press release.
Joji 1 Aug 2006 16:07
15/17
Its strange the time they pick to do this after one of the better E3s this year. Its the highlight of the early summer, and i guess we'll have to wait and see what they have planned.
I pray they make room or smaller site reps like Spong, Gamesfirst and Gamesarefun, because its these sites that gives us more value for money than any damn print magazine Future can chuck out (even though I'm and Edge reader, even that has lots its way somewhat).
I thought MS Xbox Live improvements were cool this year. My mate got a demo of Lost Planet while the show was in progress, which I must say is gonna be a superb game. If this is built on that can be good for all.
Scaling back size could easily back fire mind, because I'm sure the public that usually attend E3 decide what they are gonna buy by checking out stuff there. What happens if its just industry only? Perhaps they should let the public in on a specific day or something, when most reps can have a rest.
Get those booth babes back too. If they are good enough to help sell cars, they are good enough to help sell games too. Hot chicks need to earn a crust too.
I pray they make room or smaller site reps like Spong, Gamesfirst and Gamesarefun, because its these sites that gives us more value for money than any damn print magazine Future can chuck out (even though I'm and Edge reader, even that has lots its way somewhat).
I thought MS Xbox Live improvements were cool this year. My mate got a demo of Lost Planet while the show was in progress, which I must say is gonna be a superb game. If this is built on that can be good for all.
Scaling back size could easily back fire mind, because I'm sure the public that usually attend E3 decide what they are gonna buy by checking out stuff there. What happens if its just industry only? Perhaps they should let the public in on a specific day or something, when most reps can have a rest.
Get those booth babes back too. If they are good enough to help sell cars, they are good enough to help sell games too. Hot chicks need to earn a crust too.
SPInGSPOnG 1 Aug 2006 16:33
16/17
Joji wrote:
Hot chicks need to earn a crust too.
Dude, you are so right. I mean they can't all be screwing millionaires.
tyrion 1 Aug 2006 17:11
17/17
Rod Todd wrote:
Dude, you are so right. I mean they can't all be screwing millionaires.
There are more millionaires at Microsoft alone than booth babes at E3.