E3 Expo Backouts

[Bobby Flat Foot]

E3 is the world's premier trade show for computer, video and mobile games and related products. At E3, the video game industry's top talent pack the Los Angeles Convention Center, connecting tens of thousands of the best, brightest, and most innovative professionals in the interactive entertainment industry. For three exciting days, leading-edge companies, groundbreaking new technologies and never-before-seen products will be showcased. E3 connects you with both new and existing partners and provides unprecedented exposure to emerging markets. E3 is where new worlds of the interactive entertainment industry are inspired.

Anyone who's familiar with gaming has most likely heard of the annual E3 convention. Companies worldwide have flocked there for years to reveal all kinds of new technology, but is it's popularity fading? Four major publishers have already backed-out of this year's convention, and many fear others may follow this trend.

Electronic Arts (EA) kicked off this trend in January, being the first publisher to pass on the expo. Shortly thereafter Activision (which includes World of Warcarft publisher Blizzard) decided to pass on a booth as well. While just recently, Wargaming and Disney Interactive gave up their spots too.

EA has stated they chose to ditch the invitation-only expo in favor of a fan-oriented 'EA Play' event that will be open to the public. Wargaming made a statement claiming they want to focus more on their players, "Whether it's a small group of players or hundreds at one of our player gatherings, they're our main priority. From a strictly business perspective, E3 just doesn't fit our current direction. It's a show that is very centralized on retail product, and as a free-to-play digital download gaming company, we've realized that while the show may be a good fit for lots of other publishers and developers, it's currently not a great fit for us."

So, what do you all think? Did these publishers make the right decision? Is E3 facing a downfall?

...what's Disney up to?

 

[Kat Truewalker]

I think it probably reflects changes in the industry. You have to ask the question 'who is E3 for' ~ I'm guessing it's expensive to hire a booth, there are no public allowed inside so it's a celebratory pat on the back for a few 4* companies.

I also think a lot of companies are recognising that their survival depends on consumers, gamers like you and I and perhaps they need to engage us a little bit more.

Also nowadays you don't have to wait on tenterhooks for months for the next AAA title, you can get an early look in the beta or even early access Alpha games.

Another thing I think is that most of the new innovations and creative ideas are coming from indie and small developers, Ark, Rust, Guns of Icarus to name but a few, the big companies seem to be either resting on their laurels or bringing out rehashed versions of the same old formats.

I hate to think I've got cynical about gaming, but watching the price of these things rise over the last year + DLC +cosmetic packs +ingame transactions +subscriptions...... they're about reaching the limit of value for money, in my opinion anyway.

 

[Solomon Warshot]

It's unfortunate but it seems like some companies feel like they have so much to offer that it'd be better to just have their own where they have the whole arena/whatever to themselves instead of having one booth by itself.. I'll still watch E3 and all these other companies' events obviously. I just hope they can live up to the hype that come with these types of events because recently at E3, they haven't been able to. (Especially Microsoft. I mean seriously, how many times can you rehash Halo, Forza Motorsports, and Tomb Raider!??!)

As far as where games are going nowadays, as the person above me mentioned, it seems a lot of the larger and older gaming corps. (343, Sony, and a few others) are deciding to go with the "rehashed strategy" that Activision has proven rehashing a popular game works with their constant rehashing of Call of Duty and people still buying every new installation of it even though they make minimal to no changes between each game.