End of an era? E3 2023 cancelled

[Thaldor]

Summary

 

After couple of years of misfortune E3 2023 has been cancelled for "lack of interest". 2019 marks the last really held E3 with 2020 being completely cancelled, 2021 being digital and 2022 being cancelled for "focusing to revitalize showcase" that would set new standards for hybrid conventions. Big publishers have left E3 one by one, year after year, with Activision Blizzard starting it, Sony not caring after 2018 and this year Nintendo "not having anything to show", Microsoft saving funds and that's were the big three already. Also this year Ubisoft confirmed, finally, not attending and in it's tail Sega and Tencent announcing not attending.

 

The bigger thing is that Entertainment Software Association, the owner of E3, and ReedPop, the organiser of E3, didn't mention in their email anything about E3 2024. Unlike last year when E3 2022 was cancelled the E3 2023 was announced in the same message but not this time, just sorry and gone.

 

Quotes

Quote

We appreciate and understand that interested companies wouldn't have playable demos ready and that resourcing challenges made being at E3 this summer an obstacle they couldn't overcome. For those who did commit to E3 2023, we're sorry we can't put on the showcase you deserve and that you've come to expect from ReedPop's event experiences.

 

My thoughts

 

E3 has been the biggest event for decades already and these news are bit sad, understandable but still sad. For a time now big companies have left the E3 for a reason or another reason, first reason being shared spotlight and the second reason being shared event. After all nothing is free and in these cases the focus and attention are the income and E3 has been known as one of the most expensive expos to attend for companies (especially if they want to make it big). Just out of my rear but I would say having some actor, showing your trailer and having the stage on Game Awards is probably around the ballpark of just paying the area and electricity of E3 stand and having timespot in official timetable with the big difference that the whole event won't be stopped for your show, there might and can be shows at the same time as yours and definedly you aren't getting the 100% of the attention.

 

E3 has also kind of lacked focus after it was opened to the public, comparing it to something like way more under the hood focused GDC, halfway cosplay con and complete focus on single company BlizzCon or indie and public focused PAXs, the E3 lost it's teeth when it became public and not the "directed by Michael Bay" media conference. While E3 did grow a lot by going public, the kind of keystone of it used to be that shadiness of public getting to see the keynotes and the rear being media, devs and publishers connecting, just like GDC is for the devs and your everyday Fortnite gamer wouldn't probably get much out of it, E3 used to be that for the press and publishers. This is kind of also why E3 trailers have gained the notoriety they have because they weren't really to show the new game but to showcase the future of gaming, just like while you can get glimpses of sooner or later releasing games on GDC the focus isn't on that but on the tech under the hood and what kind of systems everyone is building. These things are impossible for more public show because the common gamer seeing footage of a game takes it as a gospel and then gets angry because the game released years after isn't anything like the footage meant to get interest of financiers and showing the media what your company thinks they can achieve, think it like the concept cars shown in car shows.

 

But it is what it is. RIP Electronic Entertainment Expo, for now.

 

Sources

IGN

Eurogamer

Polygon

[Shimejii]

These expos have for the most part, lost their purpose. They had nothing to offer gamers, it was a meeting for people in the gaming industry to meet up and such, and it became just an advertisement for games that were usually years away from being finished.

 

I am glad to see it go, quite a few more should be on the way out. Glorified Advertising crap like this always ends up dying and they wonder why people dont go when there is nothing to be gained by going.

[aisle9]

5 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

These expos have for the most part, lost their purpose. They had nothing to offer gamers, it was a meeting for people in the gaming industry to meet up and such

It's a trade show. It's not for gamers. It's for people in the trade. If gamers show up and drool over stuff, fine, but it was there for industry insiders to show off their shit, not for someone to walk in and act like the kid at Target hogging the Super Nintendo. If it's been priced to the point that industry insiders don't want to show up, then yeah, they done goofed.

[Mark Kaine]

18 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

It's not for gamers. It's for people in the trade. If gamers show up and drool over stuff, fine,

but it was presented as such, not just for industry ppl, with lots of playable demos, merchandise etc

 

 

just like any other "gamer convention" i never understood the appeal (yes sure i get why someone would like to play demos and buy merch, but the whole act of showing up there, listening to boring speeches and meet up with fellow "gamers" never seemed worth it to me - probably because i don't have much in common with the avg gamer, and cosplay or anime are simply just memes to me - although, weirdly enough, i like the esthetic...

 

E3 was super awesome on PS home however,  they had the best spaces and the best glitches(home was all about glitching, there where even competing glitch clubs and stuff) plus some fun mini games,  plus some very unfun speeches... -.-

 

"The year of playstation" (every year ... *yawn*)

[TempestCatto]

I guess in the era of social media, a lot of money can be saved by just loaning stuff or flying in "influencers" to your HQ and have them film a few vids to showcase your product/service. I've never been to a trade show, but I have been to gun and farm shows. I always loved walking the floor and seeing all the cool new things - hell even things that weren't new. But the way LTT used to cover E3 compared to now, there's nothing exciting anymore or it's just not economical to do anymore. Either way, most people don't go they just watch videos about what interests them.

[Quackers101]

as one would expect from this, covid, more digital etc. but it also sort of sucks, that and other things about the community going away.

a bit like how splitscreen was fading out of games, physical copies and have more issues with gaming as a whole and as seen with CS2/valve/steam and other platforms, this is not going away.

[Arika]

e3 has been falling off for quite some years now. i'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

[SteveGrabowski0]

E3 died for me when Playstation stopped going. Playstation was the only one who did presentations with live gameplay and not heavily edited highlight trailer crap. Guess I will miss the Devolver Digital videos though, those were still funny.

[Taf the Ghost]

What really killed E3 was the reality that in the pre-Video Internet era, actually getting eyeballs on games was hard. So, Dev teams were basically making vertical slices just for E3 that didn't necessarily have much to do with the final game. That was a big part of marketing, but it also derailed productions for 3-5 months a year. (This is why CG trailers became all the rage.)  My understanding is basically everyone on the production side hated it. This is probably why Sony pulled out originally. They didn't need the big expense, they could put the trailers out whenever and some big presentation at E3 didn't start a trend of buzz anymore. 

 

As much as the God of War or Ghost of Tsushima revels were really awesome, you get as much "pop" from a well done trailer. Game makers still need to do marketing, but the industry is maturing to the point where it's not some San Fran startup that's blown half their VC money on an office.

[Eaglerino]

2 hours ago, aisle9 said:

It's a trade show. It's not for gamers. It's for people in the trade. If gamers show up and drool over stuff, fine, but it was there for industry insiders to show off their shit, not for someone to walk in and act like the kid at Target hogging the Super Nintendo. If it's been priced to the point that industry insiders don't want to show up, then yeah, they done goofed.

GDC is for industry in trade, E3 was always for showing off their games to sell to gamers

[Avocado Diaboli]

4 hours ago, aisle9 said:

It's a trade show. It's not for gamers. It's for people in the trade. If gamers show up and drool over stuff, fine, but it was there for industry insiders to show off their shit, not for someone to walk in and act like the kid at Target hogging the Super Nintendo. If it's been priced to the point that industry insiders don't want to show up, then yeah, they done goofed.

The term "trade show" also specifically includes marketing to customers. That's as much the point as doing business and networking. Not sure where people get the idea that a trade show is only for insiders.

 

I can't speak to how much of the latter actually took place at E3, but to me as an outside observer, it sure seemed like it was much more about the advertising, mostly directly to customers. And honestly, after Nintendo proved you can show off your stuff online on your own terms and COVID forced everybody else to follow suit they probably realized that it serves no practical purpose to rent large auditoriums for their 2 hour ad campaigns and a booth to have a bunch of journalists and gamers with too much money and time on their hands play a rushed, unfinished botch job of a demo. Better to just use the advances in video streaming and curate a tightly controlled presentation that can't be derailed by cringeworthy hosts or live demonstrations of tech shitting the bed.

 

Now while I was never a fan of the overly corporate aspect and the idea of voluntarily subjecting myself to hours upon hours of ads when I purposely block ads everywhere else, I did enjoy the cultural aspect of it that arose from making fun of all the goofs.

[Doobeedoo]

It's been bad for a while also others have their own conventions too. 

[mr moose]

Honestly, I think  whats really killing these events is the ticket price.  It doesn't seem to matter what you are going to see be it cars, games, computer hardware, caravans or even sex toys, you may as well buy tickets for the rolling stones or ACDC, because that's about how much you have to cough up at many of these things.  If they don't get enough foot traffic then the advertising reach for these companies is not worth the effort. 

 

Hell they could probably make more $$ by offering a few new in game skins rather than trying to impress a bunch of people who haven't bought the game yet.

 

 

 

[suicidalfranco]

good. One less place to sell hype.

[Brooksie359]

17 hours ago, Shimejii said:

These expos have for the most part, lost their purpose. They had nothing to offer gamers, it was a meeting for people in the gaming industry to meet up and such, and it became just an advertisement for games that were usually years away from being finished.

 

I am glad to see it go, quite a few more should be on the way out. Glorified Advertising crap like this always ends up dying and they wonder why people dont go when there is nothing to be gained by going.

No people just lost faith in E3 after last years issues and moved to summers game fest. Nobody wants to prepare a bunch of stuff for E3 then have them cancel the even last minute. Also most of the big companies have their own events like Nintendo direct and the state of playstation. Personally it makes sense why people opted out of E3 and switched to summer games fest 

[Brooksie359]

15 hours ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

E3 died for me when Playstation stopped going. Playstation was the only one who did presentations with live gameplay and not heavily edited highlight trailer crap. Guess I will miss the Devolver Digital videos though, those were still funny.

Devolved digital will be at summer games fest. And yeah the big 3 all said they wouldn't do E3 which makes sense seeing that Nintendo, playstation and Xbox all hold their own events which probably makes way more sense as they can time their events when they are ready to show off new things. 

[CTR640]

I could not care less about the E3 anymore. Games are full of bugs and performance issues and also full of microtransactions nonsense. And sometimes games shown at E3 look and are different when they are released. 

[Remixt]

yes, but what about E4?