E3 Is Not Returning Anytime Soon (theverge.com) 27
According to a report (PDF) from the Los Angeles City Tourism Commission, E3 has been canceled in LA in 2024 and 2025. The Verge reports: Apparently, the city does not expect E3 to return in 2024 or 2025. This news seems at odds with the messaging from E3's organizers, ReedPop and the ESA. Earlier this year, the ESA -- the trade organization that runs E3 -- announced it was partnering with ReedPop, the entertainment company that runs large fan conventions like New York Comic-Con and Penny Arcade Expo, to run E3 2023. After the covid-19 pandemic shuttered in-person events between 2020 and 2022, 2023 was meant to mark the in-person return of the video game industry's biggest event of the year.
However, E3 2023 was canceled, with ReedPop global vice president of gaming Kyle Marsden-Kish stating the reason why was out of consideration that publishers wouldn't have game demos or reels available in time. But if E3 2024 and 2025 are also canceled, it suggests there is something else preventing E3's return or that its organizers are considering moving it out of Los Angeles. [...] The press release announcing E3 2023's cancellation hinted that ESA and ReedPop would work on future E3 events. In an email to The Verge, the ESA wrote, "ESA is currently having conversations about E3 2024 (and beyond), and no final decisions about the event have been made at this time."
However, E3 2023 was canceled, with ReedPop global vice president of gaming Kyle Marsden-Kish stating the reason why was out of consideration that publishers wouldn't have game demos or reels available in time. But if E3 2024 and 2025 are also canceled, it suggests there is something else preventing E3's return or that its organizers are considering moving it out of Los Angeles. [...] The press release announcing E3 2023's cancellation hinted that ESA and ReedPop would work on future E3 events. In an email to The Verge, the ESA wrote, "ESA is currently having conversations about E3 2024 (and beyond), and no final decisions about the event have been made at this time."
Not Needed (Score:4, Insightful)
E3 was always a press event that happened to allow the public in. Companies competed for both eyeballs and bragging rights, and doing so was wildly expensive.
Why do that when they can announce a “Showcase” or “Direct” streaming event with little notice and still get plenty of press coverage without having to compete for attention, all at a fraction of the cost and without the inevitable bugs or awkward on-stage moments?
Other gaming conferences are centered more around their communities, with announcements being a nice sideshow for the people attending. Understandably, those events can’t move online as easily, so they continue to do okay.
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Games are interactive, and they sell themselves b
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You can't showcase novel control mechanisms or innovative displays or smell-o-vision or VR crap online.
Who said it was only online? All the showcase events from different publishers also had press and public members attending.
Re: Not Needed (Score:2)
Yeah, but name a single "novel control mechanism", "innovative display" or piece of smell-o-vision/VR crap that's actually been a success, ever. The list begins and ends with the Wii-Mote, and that's something that's reasonably easy to demonstrate even just through a static video. All these fields are boondoggles for various reasons. What you stated is factually accurate, it will in fact be harder to demonstrate the revolutionary possibilities in sniffing Lara Croft's butthole or Carl Johnson's sweaty blood
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E3 was always a press event that happened to allow the public in.
And that has only really been the case since 2017. It started off as a way for game devs to showcase their products for the press and retailers. Now physical games sales are shrinking rapidly and there are not many small to mid-size retailers out there anymore for devs to compete for shelf space in their stores. Most large publishers have distro agreements with the large outlets already and smaller devs are just 100% digital.
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Last great E3 I think was when Bethesda announced Fallout 4. The timing was just right for it was a good reason. Earlier, E3 was a smaller low key event and had been slowly growing a bit more prestigious with time. Later there weren't so many "big" announcements and demos, and too many were exclusives, or platform only "here are the 57 games we're hoping to release on BoxStation this year each with up to 10 hours of play time each!". Even this year's direct stream of XBox show case plus Bethesda was had
Actually perfect (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Actually perfect (Score:2)
90% of the population does not get sick from first person shooters. I agree with the general thrust of your statement, but come on, man.
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BUT a show like E3 can really translate well to being in VR.
It cannot. The single worst part of the showcases from various companies recently was the way they incorporated the environment into their presentations. Meta's showcase especially was utterly cringeworthy and a lot of people were asking if the presenter was AI generated. They environments weren't that's for sure, AI would have done a much better job of those.
Sure if you create a true virtual E3 event you may have something, but there is a 0% chance that publishers won't fuck with it making fancy effects us
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Still not seeing why I'd want to put a helmet on to watch a presentation.
Banning booth girls (Score:4, Interesting)
was the start of the end
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Sexually repressed much? E3 banned booth girls nearly two decades ago. In fact E3 attendance peaked a decade after they banned booth girls.
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Attendance fell by 10k in 2006 after the ban. Then they nearly destroyed it by moving it to Santa Monica.
They didn't get back to pre-2006 number until 2017,
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So ... yes? I mean you literally just repeated exactly what I said. Well almost. I said attendance peaked a decade after and you said 11 years.
Were you trying to make a counter-argument?
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Once authoritarians get a taste for blood, they will do more and more and more.
It always starts with something that a large majority of the public agrees with, but then it goes downhill until the thing is dead.
Just look at the state of the AGDQ/SGDQ for example, it's now a sterile husk of itself.
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I enjoy looking at beautiful women as much as the next hetero guy (and presumably as much as your average lesbian)... but if you are choosing to attend an industry event based on whether or not there will be pretty women paid to treat you like you matter to them, you are a desperately sad person who needs to get out more.
If attendance dropped by 10k after the banning of 'booth babes'... good. Those former attendees need to be somewhere else getting properly socialised rather than being drooling creeps.
Re: Banning booth girls (Score:2)
It's not the simple lack of booth babes itself. It's the sterile and puritanical attitude behind it.
In a sense, it's similar to Van Halen's infamous "brown M&Ms" clause. They wouldn't object to anything about a bowl of M&Ms that included brown ones. What they would find concerning would be the lack of attention to detail and the cavalier attitude towards the rider.
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So, bring them back? Wait, why did E3 get rid of them?
E3? (Score:1)
Electronic Entertainment Expo (Score:2)
Basically, video games, apparently.
in-person events have been problematic (Score:4, Informative)
My ex-wife was the executive director of a nonprofit that runs annual conferences. This has been _really_ tough since 2019. You have issues with people not wanting to show, and people wanting to cancel their memberships because they aren't getting an in-person event. In her case, complicated by the fact that a lot of the members were older and necessarily more afraid of COVID, somewhat counteracted by the fact that a lot of them are holistic alternative people who don't believe in vaccines and stuff like that. It was a real shitshow.
They did online events in 20 and 21 which were poorly attended (a lot of the traffic is driven by continuing education credits, and that happened, but the other events were a dud), and did in-person in 2022 but the attendance was very poor. The impact to the organization is the spiff they get for room blocks from hotels, and the rate they get from the convention location for things like food is highly driven by attendance. If they guess badly or are locked into pre-pandemic contracts, things get really bad. And this org was locked into contracts written in 2017 for all years up through 25, with expectations for at least consistent attendance based on pre-pandemic levels. That's commonplace in the convention industry. The org she worked for was close to bankruptcy in Spring 2022. Since i'm out of that situation I have no idea what the 23 situation looks like, but judging what I see from their public posts and stuff, it ain't great.