…is the new E3.

There are times in my life that I’ve watched people and organizations completely blow it. They had a good thing going, or perhaps they were just about to hit the big time. Whatever it is, they were somehow on the verge of even greater success. They had generated goodwill and people liked them. They put out products and offered services that the public really liked. Then, like a blind cat chasing a blind mouse, they strayed from whatever path had brought them initial success and into chaos. Arrogance is almost always involved. Generally speaking, after doing so, they don’t ever come back to their former glory.

Examples abound. Apple Computing. Ross Perot. Brad McQuaid. Sony and the PS3.

This past year I watched helplessly as the ESA, E3’s corporate mother, appeared to be going down that same, self-destructive path. They talked about a ?new? E3, as though the old E3 was a red-headed step-child. In their incoherent babbling, you could hear their disdain. It was kind of a distasteful sneer. They almost sounded like they were, you know, French. They hated what their own creation, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, had become.

Each time I heard one of those somewhat condescending ESA announcements, I thought to myself What the hell are they talking about? Are they completely out of touch? Did they not get enough hugs when they were growing up?

The purpose of E3 is for game developers to show off their wares, to get press coverage, get some publicity and to generate buzz. Buzz isn’t always easy to generate, but a good showing at E3 was the best bet in the industry to get the fanboys, gaming journalists and gamers excited about a game. That’s exactly why game companies were willing to fork over big money to be there. The payoff was greater.

In a nutshell, the old E3 was tremendously, overwhelmingly successful. The convention was accomplishing its mission in spades. It was generating publicity for upcoming games. It created excitement for new titles. It caused buzz. Developers and publishers were ecstatic at the results.

The ESA…Missing the Big Picture?

Like everything else in life, the glass can either be half full or half empty. E3 was an extravaganza of all things having to do with gaming. It was like a circus, downtown Tokyo, the Matrix, a strip show, Akira, the invasion of Normandy, Mardi Gras, and Las Vegas all rolled up into one. It was fun, painful, awesome, dorky and grand. It was like Second Life in real life. Only at E3 could you interview the developer of Hellgate: London, while people were loudly playing Dance Dance Revolution not more than 10 steps away. It was costumes, booth babes, previews and hands-on demos. It was all in one huge, unwieldy place, the Los Angeles Convention Center. 12 hours a day of exhausting fun and sensory overload. E3 was Geeks Gone Wild. And it was, sometimes, just a little too far over the top, but that was always part of its appeal.

This was the crowd at E3 2006. (Photo: GameRevolution.com)

Despite the fact that it was a huge success and growing bigger every year, the ESA decided they wanted to change E3. If you listened to the things the ESA people were saying, both in public announcements and in off-the-cuff comments to the presenters at E3, they didn’t like what the E3 had become. They were octogenarians about the whole thing. They complained about everything that was cool. The music’s too loud, the booth babes need more clothes, there are too many whipper-snappers calling themselves gaming journalists. They were negative. They were critical. They were arrogant.

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It…

If you listen carefully to what the ESA wanted, it was a very civil event. You know, a trade show, a big series of business meetings, that kind of thing. They wanted the business of gaming to be discussed in civil tones over a nice cappuccino. They didn’t want Geeks Gone Wild, they didn’t want excited fanboys, they didn’t want scantilly-clad blondes, and they didn’t want wierd stage bands like Mutaytor at their show.

But gamers did. Geeks did. The gaming companies themselves certainly did; hell, they were the ones hiring the booth babes and the loud stage bands and the dancers. That’s the stuff that was working. It was generating buzz. It was giving the developers the opportunities they needed to give the best darn sales-pitch they could muster up. Though there was hand-wringing and wailing about the change, the ESA did it anyway. They weren’t listening.

We stumbled across an interesting insight into the ESA’s mentality. Former NCSoft exec, Fred Schmidt, publicly stated that the ESA had taken to fining people for being too loud or extravagant or otherwise breaking ESA rules at the old E3. The ESA fined both NCSoft, and Schmidt personally, for making too much noise at last year’s show. They charged him $5000 for a noise violation.

Remember, NCSoft was paying the ESA to be at the show. They were a paying customer. We saw their presentation: it was a Mutaytor stage show. It was fun, but nothing offensive. Loud, yes, but no louder than anyone else. Since when does a trade show company have the huevos to fine it’s own customers for breaking a rule? We couldn’t escape the feeling that this was that arrogance thing again.

The Mean Monster That Is the ESA

So, despite what the industry wanted, the ESA converted the 2006 E3 into the 2007 “E3 Business and Media Summit”. For the purposes of this article, I’ll refer to the new show as the E3BM. Basically, the E3BM is a newer, smaller, less fun version of E3. This conversion happened over the course of a year. It was slow and laborious and went through several mutations, like a giant, slow blob of slime that moved through a small Iowa town. Developers screamed and shouted and ran away, but the blob continued forward, obliterating everything in its path. Whups, sorry, I waxed all science fictional there for a moment. You get the idea.

The Results

Now it’s past; we’ve experienced the E3BM. We were there. We saw it. In fact, due to a paltry lack of security, we gate crashed it. It was a conference, a nice, teeny, tiny, baby puppy event. It was not a big show. I’ve seen head lice that were bigger. I saw too many guys in suits (I also saw more flip-flops and Hawaiian shirts than I ever wanted to, but that’s because the whole thing was in Santa Monica). There is no question that you could discuss, in civil tones, the finer points of your game over a nice, soothing chai tea.

But tranquility is not the measure of success of a computer gaming trade show. That’s not the point of the E3. The bigger question is whether the new E3 accomplished its mission: did it generate press, publicity, and buzz for the game companies? That is what we sought to evaluate, and we used three criteria to do so.

• The first criteria was press. The purpose of the E3BM is to generate press — TV, print media, and online websites — for the individual games. Stories have to be written, games have to get press coverage. If the E3BM is generating the same levels of press coverate as the old E3, then it’s a success.
• The second criteria is buzz. At the old E3, buzz was an intangible factor that spoke volumes about individual games. Quake Wars generated a lot of excitement; a lot of people crowded the booth, and talk of Quake Wars could be heard throughout the show. Games like Tabula Rasa and the Conan MMO were relative unknowns before last year’s E3. Now, they are commonly known and much talked about (and anticipated) titles. If the new E3BM is allowing interesting games, especially little-known games, to generate the same levels of buzz from the press, fanboys, and gamers everywhere as the old E3 did, then the E3BM is a success.
• The third criteria is publicity. The old E3 show generated publicity about itself. This was a very good thing, in that that attention trickled down to the individual games at the show. Somehow, this entire (but extremely important) aspect of the old E3 seemed lost on the ESA. At the old E3, people thronged the floor of the show, they tried tricks to get inside, they crowded the outside of the event, and they caused traffic jams for miles around the convention center. The foot traffic near the show was formidible. You couldn’t find parking anywhere nearby. Helicopters flew overhead, people outside the convention center passed out flyers, even the nearby bars were crowded with the game crowd. In every way, the old E3 drew attention to games. If the new E3BM can somehow match this level of publicity, then it’s a success.

The Consequences

E3 in 2006 had 60,000 – 70,000 attendees. Many of these were journalists representing the smallest to the largest media outlets. The E3BM invited only 3,000 hand picked journalists. Despite this, they still expected to generate equivalent levels of press coverate. Result: the E3BM, by any standard, didn’t generate nearly as much press coverage as the old E3 did. Many stories, even on dedicated gaming websites, and even during the E3BM itself, were about non-E3BM events.

You had to apply to attend. And the ESA was actually downright arrogant about who they’d be inviting. It was pretty simple: if you were a big media outlet, fine. If not, too bad. Result: Big companies got plenty of coverage. Small to medium press weren’t present to cover lesser-known titles. This prevented those games from getting press coverage or generating buzz.

E3BM was held at a series of disconnected hotels in Santa Monica which required signficant planning ahead and careful scheduling. If you missed your shuttle, you could walk 3 miles to the next venue. Result: Sure, some of the “suits” I was seeing at the show needed the exercise, but this is a remarkably effective way to keep people from seeing as many games as possible.

The venues were tiny. Imagine the circus. The huge tent, the popcorn, the candy. You walk into the tent expecting to lions and elephants and acrobats. The lights go on and in the middle is the teeny-tiniest little stage for fleas. That was E3BM. Result: though what we saw was limited, we didn’t see a single presentation that was particularly exciting or attention gathering. We actually got the impression that this kind of thing was frowned upon. The entire E3BM had a rather dull, buzz-killing feel to it. It simply wasn’t generating excitement.

Believe it or not, this was one of the more crowded displays we saw at the E3BM

At E3 2006, when you walked into the main hall where there were hundreds of screens in varying booths, with developers standing nearby their games tempting you to play them. E3BM? You had to make appointments to talk to the various presenters in order to see a demo. Result: No appointment? No demo, no interview, no press coverage, no buzz. In other words, NO SOUP FOR YOU!

Shuttles carried you from location to location to get to your appointments. Miss your shuttle, miss your appointment. Try to reschedule, and you’ll have to give up something else. Result: the whole shuttling around thing effectively minimized the raw number of games the press could see over the course of the show. Bottom line? Less press, less publicity, less buzz.

Because of the whole appointments thing, discovering a new/innovative/interesting game was now much, much more difficult for the media. Result: you’re simply too busy shuttling from your appointment with Microsoft to appointment with Sony to notice the hot new game by a small independant gaming company.

Do big media press people schedule appointments to view games they’ve never heard of, or with companies they’ve never seen before? Is there any chance that some guy from the Washington Post will discover and report on a hot new MMO? Will he even know what an MMO is? Or is he more likely to go with Sony’s announced price cut for their 60GB PS3? Result: many smaller developers, aware of this problem before the show even began, abandoned the E3BM and didn’t even appear. How they’ll generate interest in their game without the old E3 is unknown.

The entire atmosphere lacked anything resembling buzz or excitement. The ambience was dry and dull. It was corporate. People shuffled, or shuttled, slowly between demos by larger corporate game companies. Result: this was about as exciting as an accounting conference. It was like a bunch of CPAs were meeting to discuss changes to tax laws. If this is somehow an ESA strategy to generate any positive sentiment about gaming, we simply don’t get it.

This is the, um, huge throng pressing to get into EA’s presentation. The conference room doors are wide open, immediately to the left. Despite this, it’s quiet enough to talk on your cell phone just outside.

There were no ugly, shocking, borderline lewd, or extravagant displays at the E3BM. Many of the displays appeared very similar to one another. Result: shocking, over-the-top displays generate publicity. These are games. They’re supposed to be fun. Intentional or not, the ESA appeared to be deliberately squelching the fun factor.

We’d heard an unconfirmed report that the ESA wasn’t at all shy about charging the developers very large sums for even the most modest displays. These extravagant fees were charged despite the fact that this new, improved trade show had a grand total of 3,000 attendees. Result: charging large sums of money to be at a small, underattended trade show is a sure way to make sure companies never come back.

Despite all of the above, we received word — again unconfirmed, mind you — that the ESA wasn’t at all hesitant about charging large chunks of cash for “extras”. These extras included basically any publicity enhancing activities a game company might want to put on at the show. Result: charging large sums of money to generate publicity at a small, underattended trade show is yet another way to make sure companies never come back.

Attendance was extremely light. Result: we were able to walk right into a number of the venues. Security was lax because, quite frankly, no one was there. I’m not saying there was no crowd, or no throng, or no buzzing rush of eager fanboys. In some cases, no one was there. Nobody.

This is the location that the ESA assigned to Activision. Notice the huge crowd of slavering fanboys and eager reporters waiting to get in to see their new, upcoming games.

The demos at the E3BM we witnessed weren’t crowded. Generally, there were smallish conference rooms partially filled with reporters. Result: this was actually positive. By limiting the number of people present at any given demo, the reporters got a lot more hands-on time with the games than the old E3. This simply has to generate better press than the old system.

We walked up to one location and were told ?Oh, sorry, we just closed.? And you know what? They really were. Result: It was 3:45 in the afternoon, and the XBox 360 concourse was closed for the day? This one speaks for itself.

At the old E3, we ate whenever we could find time. We fought the crowd for an $9 mini pizza, and waited in a long, long line for a $6 cup of coffee. You survived on adrenaline. And that adrenaline paid off, since you had to run to the press room to scratch out a news story, beating the other websites with your coverage of a game/announcement/demo or whatever. At the E3BM, there was no sense of urgency, or of having to scoop anyone. It was leisurely. Result: after a morning worth of E3BM fun this year, we decided to eat at a tiny little cafe right between two of the hotels hosting E3BM events. We got a table right away. There were other tables available. It wasn’t at all crowded. We were in no hurry, since there was virtually no competitive atmosphere at all.

The cafe afforded us the opportunity to watch the foot traffic between the various venues. There was practically none. At E3 last year, you had to fight huge, onrushing crowds of nerds wearing huge backpacks to get to your interview with ArenaNet or Flagship. Even outside the venue, the foot traffic was formidible. Result: it was painfully obvious that this tradeshow is badly underattended.

At last year’s E3, the sheer monumental size of the event generated publicity. We saw the show covered on the news every night when we got home. This year, there was no attention-getting crowd at the event, and this impacted publicity. Result: this year, I didn’t see a single news blurb ? not one ? on any of the local news channels this week.

Bandai Namco’s presentation at E3 ‘06 was a nonstop stage show that included dancers, prize giveaways, and fights between characters from their games. You can see the attention-grabbing show they were allowed to put on at this years E3BM, and the huge throng of people anxious to see it.

We ran into several of our collegues covering the E3BM. We asked what they thought of the show. We didn’t encounter one positive review. Not a single one. (In fact, we’ve yet to see a positive review of the E3BM in the media either.) We did hear several complaints, and found one reporter that gave a mixed review. Result: when the best compliments the E3BM received were, in fact, mild complaints, your show is troubled. When you consider that these statements were made by your hand-picked invitees, your “new and improved” trade show has serious problems.

Various E3BM attendees, industry observers, and game devs and execs joked openly about how the show was dead. We heard predictions that this would be the last year anyone would see an ESA trade show. Result: we heard these “jokes” more than once. It simply can’t be a good sign.

At the old E3, there was lots of on-line media coverage. Every gaming website we knew was covering it like crazy. I personally wrote at least half a dozen stories about games we’d seen or interviews we’d done. Result: Want to know how many E3BM stories I’m going to write this year? Just one, and you’re reading it right now. What’s worse is that many similar cites aren’t even doing that.

I spent much of last week, the weekend, and today surveying various gaming news sites, blogs, and tech sites for E3BM news. Result: it simply didn’t come close to the coverage E3 received last year. In this same time frame in 2006, one was hard-pressed to find any story that wasn’t about E3. My informal little survey showed that a very large proportion of recent gaming news stories have nothing to do with E3BM events. There is some coverage, to be sure ? dry interviews with very relaxed, philosophical developers seem to be the most recurring theme the past few days ? but these have none of the excitement of the old E3.

The overall tone of the gaming press, writing about the E3BM after the fact, has been described in some circles as “mixed.” This simply isn’t accurate. Most reviews of the show are actually quite negative. While mentioning a few positives — more time with developers and the sparse crowd are common — the list of complaints is far, far longer. Result: we’d argue that the invited press are being polite. They are politely offering their criticisms of the show, politely complaining, politely quoting displeased game production executives, and politely (but publicly) wondering if the E3 will even exist in a year.

The Failure of the E3BM

I’m sure you can see where all evidence is pointing. The bottom line is that if the E3BM had generated lots of publicity for the gaming companies in attendance, it would have been considered a success. Despite the apparently arrogant things done by the ESA, despite the amount they purportedly charged game developers to attend, despite the fact that only 3,000 invitees got to see anything at all, if the E3BM generates buzz for game developers, then the ESA was right, and everyone else was wrong. But did the developers get their much-needed press coverage, publicity, and buzz?

In a word, no. And we’re willing to say what most seem hesitant to proclaim: by almost every standard, the E3BM was a failure.

One has to consider the big picture. The E3BM was nothing like the old E3. EA isn’t the only company needing to publicize its games. What about the Flagships and ArenaNets and NetDevils? Small and medium sized developers got comparitively little good coverage. What’s worse, I didn’t find a single unknown title that now has the press/fans/gamers buzzing. Further, the overall amount of press coverage, publicity and buzz generated for games in general by this show pales by comparison to former E3s. This show wasn’t even close to the success of the old E3. It was downright paltry.

Of course, that’s a matter of opinion, and it depends on who you ask. Some of the bigger names in the industry got coverage — Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and some of the more corporate games got some press — and some of them might, from their limited perspective, have considered the E3BM a success. I was suprised to learn that this simply wasn’t the case. Some of their comments were muted. Others were downright negative.

The Poignant Grand Finale

In complete contrast, let’s consider the strange, bizarre conference that was also held in Santa Monica last week at the same time as E3BM and right next door. Of course, I’m referring to the EIEIO.

The EIEIO was a very unorthodox, independent game expo sponsored by publisher Gamecock. It was held at the infamous Hotel California, right in the middle of the E3 hotel venues. It had a feel to it that was very much like the old E3.

These Gamecock booth babes are as funny as they are cute.

The moment we walked up, we were welcomed by booth babes shoving t-shirts into our hands and press kits in our backbacks. Upon entering though the gates, we had drinks pressed into our hot little hands. We were ushered in to see a variety of presentations of games in development. We even got some hands-on time with an MMO I’m really looking forward to (Fury). We were offered hamburgers and hot dogs, more swag, and funky, oversized lollipops. We had lengthy interviews with fun, funny game devs who like their jobs and want to tell anyone and everyone about the new game that they’re producing. We didn’t need an appointment to talk to these guys, either. They wanted to talk to us.

And because of all this, Gamecock’s games are getting a disproportionate amount of buzz. No, the costumes and the outlandish behavior didn’t give the EIEIO the same dignity that the new E3BM has. But, when you’re at a gaming event, do you want to hang out with staunchy suits? Or do you want to hang out with wild, outlandish people having fun talking and playing video games? EIEIO 2007 generated buzz for Gamecock’s games. It was a small trade show, and it did what E3 used to do. It generated publicity, and press, and got people buzzing. And they did it all by themselves.

And thus the EIEIO, a trade show hosted by one singular developer, is getting more press than many of the big developers at the E3BM. They hosted nine games ? nothing more ? and those games are getting plenty of publicity.

This admittedly crappy picture will give you some idea of the crowd at the EIEIO. That hotel was stuffed with sweaty geeks.

Upon surveying the large crowd that the EIEIO had drawn, I mentioned to a very friendly, very humble, very accessible Gamecock CEO Mike Wilson ?You’ve got a huge crowd here. You’re getting far more attention than anything E3BM is doing. You’re simply blowing the E3BM away.?

Mike just smiled broadly. ?I know,? he said, clearly amused.

This is Mike with some mourning booth babes. He doesn’t take game development (or anything else) too seriously.

The most amusing (or poignant, depending on your perspective) event was the EIEIO’s closing ceremony. It was called “E3 Up In Smoke”. It was a tongue-in-cheek funeral for E3. And it was thronged with a pulsating, huge-ass crowd.

The funeral march had a band, booth babes dressed in black funeral mini-dresses, and professional mourners of every ilk. It was crazy. It was like a Mardi Gras funeral, in space, on LSD. Hundreds of people followed the procession. It was over the top. And everyone loved it.

It’s not every day you see a robot speak at a funeral. In this case, it’s never been more appropriate.

At the conclusion of the march a funeral (of sorts) was held. People mourned, and speakers gave eulogies for the E3BM. The Destructoid robot even spoke (you can read their coverage of the funeral here). More than one of the eulogists openly predicted that we’d never see the E3 again, and that another show would rise up and replace it in all its former glory.

And when this was said, the crowd cheered.

Copyright 2007 by WanderingGoblin.com. All rights reserved.

Coming Up: Look for our upcoming review of Fury, the hardcore PvP MMO, as well as our full write up of the EIEIO convention.

If you enjoyed this article, visit out main site at www.WanderingGoblin.com. Funny screenshots, humorous “guides” to your favorite games, cynical op-ed articles (like this one) and, as always, our tongue-in-cheek coverage of MMOs is sure to keep you laughing.