E3. What It Was and What It Isnt...What Needs to be Done

Now E3 has just ended a few days ago and while we did get quite a few surprises out of some press conferences, are we all really happy with the show? Did we all get that excitment, joy, and urge to stay awake till 6 AM for some key announcment that we all got years ago? Did the show have the same impact as opening present on Christmas?

I think the answer for most E3 lovers, including myself, is no. The show this year was far from my expectation of being the biggest and best video game conference around. Last year was the year you would expect to be lame, as the conference was no long open to the entire industry and was being held in hotels of Santa Monica, but who would of thought it would have a bigger turn out than this year?

As of last year the ESA, the guys that run the industries event, decided that no general public would be aloud to visit E3. Now the event was always closed to public, but if you wrote about video games, worked at a gamestore, or happened to be a hot booth babe you were aloud in. With this rule none of this is possible, only head guys from top companies are aloud in and no the hot booth babes are not aloud to follow. So by doing this your cutting out every small video game website, every entertainment blog, and every smaller developer or small employee from entering the show, which cuts the draw out of people dramaticly. Then to make matters worse they decided to make it even tougher on small developers by putting HIGH price tags on getting any sort of booth in the show and then giving booths the size of bedrooms to people that can barely afford it. Now the problem is companies like Activision, Blizzard, and several other companies have already withdrawed from the ESA and wont be attending E3 until its fixed. So not only have you lost attendence, but you have lost major companies, small companies, and preaty much all the people that keep your industry alive.

Now some people may see it as them just making it easier to spread out news, cut the crowds down, and make it more professional. Well it has the complete opsosite effect. With less crowds means less people to show off, with less journelist means less sites are digging up news, and less people means less announcments. After all with GDC right around the corner gathering 50 times more people, why should companies care what happens at E3?

Now the problem is they are trying to hard to ruin E3. Its known for being full of entertainment, having lots of people, and being the biggest party of the summer. Not only that but its entertainment and your taking entertainment away. If we want profesional we got plenty of other conventions in Las Vegas, Tokyo, and even San Fran that we can turn to.

What i propose is they knock it off with these rules. Allow the fun back in E3, after all its not them thats paying for it all. Its the developers that pay for it. The developers set up the booths with loud music and effects, the devs pay the hot girls to be booth babes, and the devs make it fun. You get to sit around and watch.

Secondly lets open it completely to the public. Now you may think "ah thats a stupid idea, you just want it open so you can go" and well is it really stupid to be making bank on a show that normally has invites only? Look at San Diegos Comic Con, its 50 times bigger, its way more anticipated, and yet it has tons more news flowing through it. The thing is its done correctly, they allow the press to get up close and the fans to stay fans. The big deal is they have tons of people there, which is great for the companies. The more people the bigger the announcment, the bigger the effect. Then San Diego wins because all those people paid to get in. Just look at it this way, we had more Comic Con anticiaption articles and more Comic Con company announcments, and we even have rumors floating about who is going to be there already, and all this was happening while E3 was going on. E3 had none of this for the past few years, and this year is had absolutely none at all. Along with this it allows stars, big name companies, and the fans to all get together for one big bang. Comic Con has been for a while the big grand finaly of all summer events, and last year it even had major video game announcments.

Lastly think about the video game industry and what it needs. The Industry has no comic con, and the closest thing WAS E3 but we obviously no longer have that. Movies have the Comic Con and Video games will never be able to compete on that same scale any time soon, so E3 needs to be bigger and open to the public. However if it is open to the public, im going to say it has to be moved out of LA. LA is not the most welcoming place in Cali. However do NOT move any further up north, as people outside of Cali will not go then, but instead move it around Anehiem or south more. Otherwise keep it at LA but jazz it up and make it more welcoming.

Im sorry but with the turn out it had this year i dont expect E3 to be around much longer. I really hope it does stick around but what use is a show that has no key announcments? I remember the days when E3 would have weeks of anticiaption and then a week of nothing but huge announcments. People would be taking tons of pictures of everything, and this year there was nothing to take pictures of. San Diego must be proud with Comic Con but LA is starting to disapoint with E3. Both contracts to keep the conventions in their cities expire in 2012, while i suspect San Diego will renew Comic Con, with E3 going downhill i dont suspect LA to renew E3.