drzy

The Electronic Entertainment Expo is a gathering which started off small and kinda gimmicky in 1995, and has since grown into the biggest and most anticipated showing of future and present games in the whole industry. Now, the board of directors announced plans to scale it back, spread it out to several hotels, burn it down, and let it sink into the swamp.

This is rather a shock, as E3 brings huge press and huge money not only to the gaming industry, but to LA in general. This is not just a sign of the massive growth of the gaming industry, but it is also one of the causes. The hype built from it is enough to sell millions of games with just a few screenshots and rendered video.

I guess that is good and bad. As, from the very beginning, the Expo has been about hype. Hype is often misguided or misplaced. It can draw attention to games that are flops before they are ever released, and it can draw needed attention away from small-time developers with new and innovative ideas, but not as much marketing money. Many developers eschew sending much of an entourage or display for the event because they simply can’t justify the ever increasing costs.

I think there were rumblings of this over the last few years, as they started to crack down on use of “Booth Babes” and overbearing displays.

Game demos, movies, and sneak previews have exploded in the years of E3, and much good press and live demonstrations have come out of the event over the years. From what they are now saying, they want to improve the business environment while not making it entirely boring. While I can respect that, and it could definitely help smaller companies, they may be overestimating their influence. Changing formats in mid-stream could lead to killing hype for the event, which would, in turn, result in an obsolete event.

E3 could be usurped by the Game Developers Conference, that builds a little more steam every year. While they focus on different things, the GDC can easily swing into E3 territory.