pubs
Wow, yes. This is a good thing! Both Tim and I have been arguing for a while that this circus should have been behind us years ago. That it still existed was a symbol of sorts of the whole inward-tuned wankathon that has been the game industry for a number of years. Sort of an embarassment, really. And it’s not the booth babes that were the problem, either.
It seemed clear that the changes this past year were a sign of desperation: either clean things up and change, or the expo will become completely irrelevent. The industry has actually started to move again, the last couple of years, and E3 really didn’t seem necessary anymore in its current form. The basic conclusion, from the people I’ve talked to, is that E3 really wasn’t any different this year. Maybe a little less annoying — and yet without the most ridiculous excess to distract a person, it became clear just how tedious and ill-conceived the whole thing was. It seemed clear that E3 was on its way down.
That they should have pulled out so abruptly is a surprise, though. Not an unwelcome one, mind! I just expected a more gradual, kicking, screaming, choking death until nobody cared anymore. I’m impressed, frankly. This is one of the more heartening things I’ve heard in a while, in regards to the industry in general — not just the “death” of E3; the boldness in simply pulling the plug like this, rather than clinging. The whole change in attitude that this suggests — well. It’s good! I like it!
Hmm… and the demise of East Coast Macworld hasn’t corresponded to any downward trend in health for the East Coast Macintosh market, either; in fact, quite the opposite.
Now ICers don’t have a reason to flock together :(
I’ll miss it as an excuse to feel special and meet up with people. I’m actually hoping it isn’t really cancelled at all!
Someone suggested elsewhere that it might have had to do with all the ridicule Sony’s been getting since E3. Of course, it had been building up for a while; it’s just the spectacle of E3 that brought everything to a head and made Sony the laughing stock of the Internet. I can see how that might cause them to dismiss E3 as their major source of woe — or at least a complication that they can do without. And I can see how Sony pulling out might snowball. “What, Sony’s not going? Then hell if we’re going!”
It’s almost certainly more complicated than that. Still, it strikes me as a likely contributing factor. And hey, even if E3 did come crashing down solely due to Sony missing the point of why everyone’s laughing at it, it’s all for the best.
Now all we have to do is wait for EA to trip over its own shoes and we’ll be set.
We’ll find other excuses! Everyone come to San Francisco for GDC! It’s more interesting, and I only have to walk ten blocks!
Well, I think Monday will show a different sign. It is pretty silly to think that the international press will be able to send reporters for dozens of shows because they decided to split it up. I think that it is just going to be renamed at worst. The machine will trudge on. Aside from the big 3 (MS, Sony, Nintendo) no one can really afford to run anything close to what they can when they all team up and get together with E3.
Anyways, if this is true, I will be at your apartment next year for GDC, so save me room on your couch.
Yeah, I can accomodate maybe two people here. Brandon and Cifaldi and Woodard and Thom are around somewhere, also. Maybe some other people!
It sounds like the lesser known developers and publishers, who would of had to struggle and waste entire budgets to get just a few square feet at E3, will get shafted again. Somewhere, somehow, a developer should rent some crappy warehouse out in the middle of Nowhere, USA, and throw the most slamming party ever, complete with thong-clad booth babes, and free grannie panties for all. To what end you ask? Just to be self-serving. It’s not like the big three won’t do it themselves also.
Well, if we’re all still in contact four years from now, I’ll be there.
I don’t know. Does E3 really do ‘em much good to start with? Atlus was almost undebatably the best booth at E3 this last year. Did anyone pay more than glancing attention? Hell no.
In theory, this brings communication back down to roughly a one-on-one level. You got something interesting? Invite someone over to look at it and talk with you. Or send a copy and have a long phone conversation. Anyone can do it!
Though I’m not so blind as to think it’ll really bring everyone down to the same level, and make everyone equally visible, in theory it has its advantages. That’s, of course, ignoring the big self-congratulatory hooplas that all the “big guys” will throw for themselves, though I imagine those should be easier to parse as bullshit without the overall obscuring film of bullshit that is E3.
It might be in San Jose that year.
have you seen this yet?
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060730-7382.html
spoilers: they ain’t killing it off completely.
You just wait for Maddencon ’07, Aderack. It will indeed be off the hizzy.
Yeah. And… they basically are! In practical effect, the E3 we know no longer exists. The E3 commission is trying to set up some other smaller event, that will probably carry the E3 name — though as yet they don’t know exactly what they’re doing and all of the major companies have declared they want no part in it. So. Yeah. It’s gone.
It’s kind of weird. Colin posted what was basically an accurate, if dramatically-spun, story; everyone else pooh-poohed it, saying “E3 isn’t gone… it’s just being retooled so that it no longer will resemble anything we recognize as E3″ — omitting the detail about Sega, Sony, Microsoft, and EA saying “fuck this noise” and nearly every other smaller developer following suit once they’d made that decision.
I kind of think NextGen got it more right. That the guys behind E3 aren’t quitting the expo business altogether doesn’t change that E3 is gone.
yep. It’s just the title, “E3 CANCELLED” was a little too strongly worded. I notice they’ve changed it now.