Were The "Winners" of E3 Enough To Ensure Survival?

Now that the industry is winding down after another E3, it's time to reflect on the relative success of the show. Paul Govan reflects with a GeekDad view of the "winners" of this years show. The question is, after the attempts to scale it back to a much more exclusive event, has E3 managed to escape obscurity and defeat at the hands of up-and-comers like PAX? Highlights of the show included Microsoft's new controller-less interface, a sexier PSP, and a myriad of releases from Nintendo.

More of the same

[Drakkenmensch]

From my personal view as someone who was not able to attend and was left with television and website coverage, 2009's edition was little more than 2008 with booth babes and more people in the background. Press conferences were lifeless as ever, with a few scant release announcement to cut the hum-drum of what looked like a stockholders quarterly fiscal meeting laced with flat corporate-approved jokes.

In short, can we have PAX yet?

I'd say...

[Darkness404]

I'd say no one "won" E3. Nintendo's releases were "meh" at best, sure the new Metroid looks good, but Wii Sports and the rest of the "Wii" series are glorified tech demos. The multiplayer Mario game looks sort of OK, but it reminds me too much of LoZ: 4 Swords which wasn't that great. Sony shot itself in the foot with a UMD-less PSP, and their motion control like most things by Sony will be a decent implementation... But far too expensive and supporting only a few games (just look at how little the Six-Axis controller is used). The new motion control for the 360 looks interesting, but like most things done by MS, its going to have a terrible implementation.

I'd say everyone "lost" at E3, other then perhaps the new Golden Sun DS game I won't be buying anything demoed unless they get really, really, great reviews.

There are more than a few "winners" at E3

[BaShildy]

All of us on the floor who were making deals, and making important contacts all won this year as opposed to last year where it was very difficult to meet everyone due to how spread out it was.

E3 in its current form is far more likely to succeed than its previous form. Booth babes and glam weren't the only things brought back this year. E3 was slowly becoming Gamestop-fest where more than 50% of the attendees were game players as opposed to game makers. The ratio was far better this year, with all of the infrastructure that was lacking in the E3 Santa Monica model.

Re:Multiplayer Mario

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah okay, it would be entertaining to play a multiplayer game of super mario...

For about five minutes.

You've obviously never played a multiplayer game of Zelda on the Gamecube.

Okay, granted, it's phenomenally unlikely you would have, given the requirements (four people, each with GBAs, plus four GBA-to-GC cables), but still, the one time I could pull that off with my friends, it was an insane amount of fun for a few hours. A deceptively vicious combination of cooperation and screaming obscenities at each other in less-than-cooperative points. And it would've been fun the next time, too, if we could ever get that stupid setup together again.

This makes me wonder if they'll try making a DS-and-Wii based Four Swords game. At the very least, it would remove the cable element. But still, I'm not discounting the idea of a multiplayer Mario game. I mean, Nintendo has a decent idea of what they're doing. Sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

What industry?

[Culture20]

Pretty bad summary. It was like a past-tense German sentence (apologies to native German speakers), where I didn't know the verb until the end of the sentence. Until PSP and Nintendo were mentioned, I didn't know they were talking about a computer gaming conference. The second to last sentence made my mind race (Controller-less interface for Windows/Office? Neat!). Then I came down to earth; oh, just console gaming.

PAX != E3

[pcgabe]

The question is, after the attempts to scale it back to a much more exclusive event has E3 managed to escape obscurity and defeat at the hands of up-and-comers like PAX?

E3 is about games.
PAX is about gamers.

They're fundamentally different, and not really in competition with each other. I'm not sure where the submitter even got this question; E3 battling obscurity isn't mentioned in the article, nor is PAX, nor other expos at all.

Re:Watch and decide for yourself

[nutshell42]

Project Natal is useless and the way everyone's going gaga over it is ridiculous.

It's in no way precise enough for precision input (just look at the breakout demo). It's not bad but lacks that last bit that would make it useful. Add the lack of a button-containing controller (oh yes, you can just use gestures...well, the demo of the UI and the paint stuff shows why that doesn't work. You have to flail around like crazy for everything) and the fact that many people have neither the space nor the physical ability for kickboxing in their living room and you will realize that Natal Sports is gonna be like Wii Sports. Timing games with a few exaggerated gestures for the casual demographic.

I don't go gaga about celebrity appearances and imho the voice acting in the Alan Wake demo was just awful (pity, I *really* looked forward to that game). The one moment of brilliance in MS' press conference was the Modern Warfare demo. Holy shit I need that game.

OTOH Sony's blinkendildo could actually be useful if their accuracy claims are true. It might enable RTSes on consoles that don't suck or table tennis where you can actually put some spin on the ball. I'm also a sucker for Last Guardian (kitty dragon ftw.) but the PSP Go didn't deliver (too ugly, too expensive).

I couldn't care less about Nintendo.

Re:There are more than a few "winners" at E3

[BaShildy]

Exactly, this is a win-win situation for publishers/developers and gamers as they each get their own dedicated conventions. E3 and GDC were losing focus and trying to do too many things at once. Now its very clear what each convention represents.

PAX - For the gamers, Concerts/Fan Events, Game Announcements and Betas.
E3 - Vendors, Publisher Press Conferences, Developer networking, Private Meeting Rooms, Lineup annoucnements
GDC - Process sharing, Education, Job Fair, Tech Demos

None of these conferences are perfect, but I did see a marked improvement in the latter two that I attend compared to a few years ago. GDC was starting to have press conferences, E3 was having hour+ long lines to play games due to the tens of thousands of gamers in attendence, and gamers just wanted a convention of their own to attend. It seems all three conferences are learning their niche and will hopefully flourish as the industry gains value by holding these annually.

Re:Amy Riadof?

[nschubach]

Any good looking gamer geek female will soon develop a superiority complex due to all the attention she will obtain. They are not worth getting worked up over. ;) Just about every "hot gamer girl" I've seen has turned into a snotty or self absorbed brat.

Re:Heard of E3. Never heard of PAX

[2short]

"The problem comes when one notes that generating enjoyment for attendees (and thus drawing huge numbers of them) is quite possibly the single most effective tactic for generating press for the exhibitors."

I'm not sure that's true, though I agree that the rise of blogs moves things more in this direction.
    Industry big-wigs making a lot of announcements about the fabulous things they are going to do in the coming year, even if it is half vaporware, makes great fodder for people who want to talk about the game industry.
    Fun for attendees chiefly means playable games. Barring massive changes to the industry, Games aren't fun for lots of people to play on the same day the press first hears of them.
    PAX is great for letting people play your game and go tell the world how great it is. E3 is better for showing a mocked up demo and telling the world how great it will be. The former is perhaps a more honest strategy, but I don't expect marketing departments to reject the latter on that basis.