Hey E3: Change or die (preferably die)
Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 12:00pm by Jack
By and large, most of the major publishers phoned in their presentations at E3. There were bright spots all around (yes, even in Nintendo’s presser), but permeating all the news, regardless of your own feelings about the show, Nintendo, or otherwise, was the stink of failure. Not from the Big Three, or the third parties (which were there peddling en masse), but from E3 itself.
Twenty people showed up for the questionably cast “Chainsaw Massacre” keynote from Texas governor Rick Perry. Nintendo said it would no longer showcase “core games” at E3, and would instead use the venue, such as it is, for “new concepts.” In the run up to the show, major publishers dropped out of the ESA, which is the group behind E3. Several publishers showed up in LA this week and put on rogue “un-E3″ shows and parties. Capcom, the huge gaming publisher, held a press conference about a movie. The halls, packed in year’s past, were barren. We saw many games we’ve known about for a year or more (some of which were delayed, again, or worse).
So let’s just get right down to it, then. E3 needs to change, or go away.
Blake and I talked about the show via my shiny new iPhone the other day, and I put forth the opinion that E3, as it is today, is a show without identity or purpose. The driving force in the gaming industry today are the non-traditional players that did not exist two or three years ago. They could care not less about E3 as it exists today.
Now, on that point, don’t take the easy bait and label these people “casual gamers” or “retard gamers,” as MS, Sony and many hardcore publishers like Epic Games would have you do. They aren’t. Related to that is the common misconception that Nintendo is abandoning the base (which, unfortunately, was amplified by the MIDI-fest press conference). There is a mountain of evidence, some of it as old as the Nintendo DS and some of it as fresh as The Conduit/Mega Man 9/Wario Land: Shake It/Etc etc etc, that disproves any such abandonment is taking place.
Instead, the base is growing, and I again ask what’s wrong with having more people, of many tastes and talents, contributing to the gaming gene pool? Even Wii Music, panned by Blake and the core press attending E3 (except Eurogamer, they liked it for some reason), will undoubtedly find a home and make millions. And that’s going to be OK, believe me. Nothing will suffer because of a hot-selling MIDI creator, just as gaming as a whole has not suffered because of Nintendo’s incessant Pokemon franchise.
Who knows, when a final build is available later this year, the game’s unorthodox and even borderline “dumbed down” controls could very well surprise us all, just like a certain joystick-less game console did way back in 1986 (look up any of Atari’s attack ads against the NES for that period, you’ll see what I mean).
But this growing force in gaming is largely unrepresented by a show like E3. At the same time E3, in the past, was THE show for interactive entertainment. It’s a Catch-22. Meanwhile, the media that went in there this week, the media that shapes the message coming out of the show to our eyeballs, is still largely representative of the core gamer. They, and many of us, were expecting an entirely different show than what we received. It led, sadly, to many a negative comment thread or two. Or ten. It will surely happen again, but that’s the nature of the beast.
And as gaming gets more popular, with more people, I only see E3 getting worse. ESA president Mike Gallagher promised to tweak the event once again next year, but his spin reeks of rearranging the deck chairs on a particularly unlucky ocean liner.
It’s quite a quandary. In this light, I’d prefer it if E3 just shriveled up and died. Publishers seem to agree. Just yesterday, EA and Ubisoft (and seemingly Nintendo), all hinted that smaller, private shows, hosted by the publishers themselves, would be a better use of time, effort and treasure. Nintendo specifically, with its “we’re happy making money all year, not just December” mentality, appears to have started down this road already. EA, Ubisoft, and others appear to be on the edge, ready to jump alongside Nintendo into the era of vendor-driven shows, or something similar.
As a former journalist who covered the Linux industry for four years, I can tell you this is how many big vendors do shows today. Red Hat, Novell, and even companies outside Linux, like Microsoft and Oracle, all do big shows that draw thousands of people. Oh, and these people aren’t just journalists, they’re the customers–the people who REALLY drive their business. Blizzard’s annual user show is a great example of how this format could help gaming. At their show, customers and media get to grill developers about the bugs in WoW side-by-side, and the developers openly respond. As an aside, I really hope Activision doesn’t mess with that formula (re: Activision Blizzard merger).
The one big thing most people will remember about this year’s E3 was how forgettable it was. Behind that, probably Final Fantasy XII. And even that announcement, when you dig deep into it, comes with its own set of harbingers, specifically the ones that revolve around spiraling development costs and a niche user base with a less-than-ideal size.
There’s just no need for a show like E3 anymore. It has to change, or die. I vote die.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I vote change. I don’t think it’s a bad thing having a show like this where Nintendo can showcase new hardware and casual games. I think what needs to change the most is the fans expectations. Hours before the show started I was reading posts about how excited everyone was, and that they could hardly wait for the show to start. I think that’s the problem. If E3 is going to continue along this line, then we as fans need to change what we are expecting, and instead of waiting like little kids for Christmas morning to finally arrive so we can dig into our presents, we need to realize that not much in the way of the new and exciting is going to be announced, and instead just look forward to seeing what interesting new gadgets will be announced. Let the show continue, but let us also change what we expect from it. If something exciting is announced, then great, but let’s not put too much hope that there will be brought forth.
I think one big factor that has brought about some of this change to the show is the availability of information we now have. I think it’s getting harder and harder for companies to keep secrets any more, so any big announcements that Nintendo (or Sony and Microsoft) could make is already making the rounds of the internet months before. So instead of trying to make some great revelations , the companies are instead going more into detail about things that we already know. I mean, think about it, which of the games that were announced was a surprise (the only one I can think of was WiiSports Resorts). Everything else was just a more in-depth look at what we had already heard months before. I think if we look at the show in this light, we can appreciate it more for what it is becoming.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Sorry to nitpick, but it’s Final Fantasy XIII not XII (you need another I in that Roman numeral).
July 18th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
What about e3 for all in Oct.?
July 18th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I’d rather see Nintendo do more showcase events like they did when the Wii was first coming out.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Nintendo is treating E3 like a venue to speak to their investors, not their customers.
Pandering to the casual audience (who, as you say, isn’t watching) plays very nice with investors.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Eh. I didn’t really start following E3 until last year, and tbh I’m not that impressed. I don’t think it needs to be dissolved though, I just think it needs to not be marketed as a convention and more of as a conference, which is really what it is.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I kind-of prefer change. But if it’s not happenin, I’m going with you, Jack.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I stopped reading after I hear midi and Wii Music.
No need to keep reading about something someone clearly has no idea what their talking about. It may not be a fully rendered orchestra at your home, but it certainly isn’t as low quality as midi. Even the casuals who buy Wii Music can tell you that, and I think you should give them your respect for your insolence.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Weren’t a lot of people already talking about this being the last E3 before it even happened? Devs are already sending it to its grave.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I agree with Joshdad (gamers need to change their expectations of E3) as well as agree that E3 really needs to change.
Back in the original days, E3 was a fantastic show made to showcase the hottest video game titles that would be released for the remaining year and Spring Quarter of the next year. Or just amazing progress on an upcoming title for late of the next year.
I believe E3 needs to go back to this model. Re-open the doors.
The gamers/target audience are what drive those numbers for the big sales of the games.
In my opinion, what Nintendo’s presentation was was just a lead-in summary. It should have been topped-off at the end with screenshots/trailers of the awesome new holiday titles. Wii Music’s demo could be used for the “creative process update” section of the lead-in summary.
E3 has always been that time to drop the “awesome-bomb” on the entire public. Put chills down everybody’s back for announcing the unexpected (FFXIII for X360)! Nintendo should have shown the work on Donkey Kong Country Wii, as well as make an announcement saying “we will publish Conduit – check this out!”
From the rumors, I did hear that E3 is planning to change the tempo after this year’s crappy performance. So hopefully it’s a good change.
But us gamers need to change our expectations of how this new change may turn out before we get too excited.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Er, guys, wasn’t E3 killed, like, two years ago??
I remember that Sony, MS, and Nintendo mentioned that E3 would be from then on just a small show for journalists and no different than any of the other regular press conferences that happen all year round. EXACTLY what you saw this past week!
Now that us potential customers (gamers) have Xbox LIVE and the Nintendo Channel and the Sony HOME right on our consoles, why would developers need an E3 for??
July 18th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Joshdad said it best: it was like a disappointing Christmas. There was a wishlist, and only some of it (very little, perhaps) was realized. People were disappointed that they didn’t get what they wanted.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
@DmNt
You really have no idea what MIDI is or what you’re talking about. Just to let you know, MIDI doesn’t carry a waveform like an MP3 file. In the most basic sense, it carries instructions for what notes to play and when to play them. It’s like digital sheet music. Just the notes, not the audio. The crappy “.mid” files you hear on crappy geocities sites is just a poor implementation of MIDI.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
E3 needs to return to being for video gamers, not just the press.
Really the event has been killed off, It is time to bring back for gamers.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
stop bitchin, u cry babies. miyamoto said himself E3 wasnt anything special. Christ. “bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch”
July 18th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
lol @ John
Maybe Nintendo will bring back their “Space World.”
BTW, I love the article’s title, lol.
July 19th, 2008 at 7:16 am
I think E3 should either die, or return to how it used to be. I remember when Nintendo showed that video of Twilight Princess back in the day before anyone had even heard of Revolution. I was so freaking excited, especially after reading about some guys just breaking into tears after seeing it. It either needs to be a massive spectacle like it used to or shuffle off it’s mortal coil.
July 19th, 2008 at 8:34 am
E3 did change, it changed from it’s greatness to what it is now. You can’t just tell it to change back again (ok, maybe you can, but you get my point)
July 19th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
My advice to Nintendo is instead of E3, show off your new games in a nationwide tour, something like the Cube Club they did about 7 years ago. Tour in the summer, from city to city, showing off playable upcoming games. That way it’s for the gamers, casual or hardcore, and everyone gets hands on time.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I still think we need a big gaming convention to show the public and the media what’s up and coming. The old style E3 was exciting, fun and new. It got people excited about gaming. These big companies are complaining they’re not seeing investment return on E3, but how can they gauge that? You can’t really measure the hype a game would have gotten without E3 vs with E3.
The most successful games, I’d argue, are the ones that are first displayed at E3. The Halo series and Gears of War I think became what they are today because of the trailers released at each year’s E3. Why unveil at E3? The media is there and the Internet is speculating how great games are going to be. A game not demoed at E3 may be doomed to failure.
I think these larger companies are afraid their promotions are going to be outshined by the other big companies. For example, Nintendo probably spent just as much as Microsoft and Sony for E3, but the media labeled their show as disappointing. Who are we going to see the first to withdraw their support from E3? Probably Nintendo. Why? They don’t want to get outshined, and they’d get more positive attention if they unveiled their games at their own convention.
July 20th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
As soon as E3 went press only you knew this was going to happen…
July 20th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I think E3 went press only because they claimed they never intended to have the public be the target audience. The press were complaining that they shouldn’t have to wait in line to play the games the public were playing.
This was solved by certain companies doing behind the scenes demos of games allowing certain groups of people in to play. I remember Microsoft demoed Halo 2 one E3 and allowed press and other highly rated people to sit down and play it. I don’t see why they can’t do that still..
July 20th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
I remember back a few years ago when I thought E3 was dying. A lot of the companies pulled from the show.