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E3 Has Been Canceled

137 points by haunter 4y ago

Kye 4y ago
I thought E3 ended ages ago with more companies going direct. That's probably why they weren't able to get enough interest: between people who are sure they remember either a shutdown or a major change and actual structural changes, there weren't enough people.
C-x_C-f 4y ago
On the one hand I'm happy that gaming is gaining recognition in a way that makes it a more sustainable career option; on the other hand it's clear that once enough money starts flowing in, more or less organic & authentic community endeavors like E3 are going to be the first to go, all in favor of siloing (I'd wager big players not attending is more of a management decision than anything else).
- Kye 4y ago
  Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but E3 was always run by and for big companies. It's never been an organic or community-led effort. The ESA is not a collection of indies or average folk.
  - C-x_C-f 4y ago
    I didn't mean to say it was a grassroots effort, just that it brought people together without too much of an artificial facade. Sure, at the bottom it was an advertisement event, but it's still fun when everything is in the same place. Now it feels like the big companies are at each other's throat and there's somewhat less of an ability to just have fun. Then again, maybe I just contracted a case of rose-tinted glasses.
    - ihateyouall123 4y ago
      It wasn't really a public convention. It is only designed to bring in people from the industry. This isn't comic-con.
      - tayo42 4y ago
        it used to be like almost 20 years ago lol, at some point it went invite only or something more exclusive. i remember it seemed like a big event when i was a kid and used to get hyped for content
- dragontamer 4y ago
  > organic & authentic community endeavors like E3 ??? From my understanding E3 became irrelevant years ago. Most indie-video game announcements are coming in at like, PAX instead... or other conventions that are more authentic. E3 was a gaming-news icon, but it just hasn't kept up with the times. It has no niche and was pulled apart by more specialized conventions. Organic authenticity is better from smaller conventions... while corporate news would rather be Nintendo Direct or other such Youtube/Direct media and marketing.
livelielife 4y ago
can we say it died after a severe case of Covid19?
- flohofwoe 4y ago
  I think E3 was already kind of an hollowed out husk in the years before, for instance Sony already skipped and did their own thing in 2019: https://gamerant.com/sony-skip-e3-2019-why/ https://gamerant.com/sony-skip-e3-2019-why/ This article also reads like the writing was already on the wall: https://www.indiewire.com/2020/06/e3-uncertain-future-gaming-event-analysis-1234569962/ https://www.indiewire.com/2020/06/e3-uncertain-future-gaming... Covid at most accelerated its death by a year or two.
  - MBCook 4y ago
    All it really did was officially prove nothing bad happened when E3 wasn’t held. Which almost everyone seemed to have already suspected.
- mkl95 4y ago
  It started dying in the early 2010s / late 2000s. Kids stopped buying fat monthly magazines to learn about new games and started consuming all that information online, for free.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  died from a lack of feminine energy, since different people got them to neuter it. and look at that, nobody's interested. should have taken a page out of the promoter and hospitality economy, kept it sexy and ignored people uncomfortable with that. because in hindsight, that was inclusion too.
  - shlubbert 4y ago
    What?
    - yieldcrv 4y ago
romusha 4y ago
The age of that "wonder" feeling when you see a new game has ended. Most people already know what's going to be showns in E3, mostly things they don't care about
- OJFord 4y ago
  Has it? Or has it just ended for you? I don't really game at all any more, I just mean maybe teenagers are just as hyped as we were then; the age hasn't passed, but we've aged.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    That still doesn't change the fact that the release news has changed drastically. Sure, teenagers today probably like to game more than yesteryear's teenagers that are all middleaged boomers now. News at 11! The point isn't a lack of nostalgia, it's that there's no mystery to reveal at a big show. Studios release teasers, arrange for "leaks", or any other ways of keeping they hype machine rolling.
    - OJFord 4y ago
      But is that new, or do we become wise to it with age?
      - dylan604 4y ago
        really? 24/7 live coverage via streaming from the likes of youtube, twitch, or which ever social platform of choice delivered straight to your eye holes with a pestering notification for immediate consumption vs maybe receiving a magazine in the mail or at the newstand once a month. yeah, sounds the same thing to me. nothing new has changed here at all. i get you trying to check the nostalgia, but if you think news delivery is any where close to the same today as it was in the 90s, you must have had some future tech available to you in the 90s
  - strken 4y ago
    In an objective sense, more new releases today are continuations of existing franchises than they were in the 90s. See https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average, which was on the front page earlier this week. Subjectively, the few teens I interact with seem hyped for new installments in old franchises, updates to existing games with more content, or remakes of old classics. I don't think there's as much excitement for new franchises, because of a wave of overpromising over the last decade.
haunter 4y ago
Feels like when Apple stopped going to the Macworld Expos then they just shut down
- NovaDudely 4y ago
  Oh yeah, they tried to continue without Apple but most of those claiming they would be fine had that thousand mile stare . They knew it was done, just didn't want to admit it that quickly.
- musicale 4y ago
  Nintendo and Square Enix still seem to be interested in in-person events, but I wonder about Microsoft and Sony as well as AAA developers in general. I imagine PAX will survive as a largely indie/tabletop/fan convention.
  - Reubachi 4y ago
    Nintendo at PAX East this year had about 30 consoles set up for mario kart, and tangentially a pokemon card game setup. No new releases or anything to promote that isn't already heavily monetized. I'd say the floor of pax was about 20 percent emptier than last year, which was already abouu 30 percent emptier than pre-covid. Indie area was down by about half which was the biggest writing on the wall to me. Tabletop still going strong, but the vendors associated with them where also hit hard.
    - musicale 4y ago
      Hmm, 20% emptier than last year sounds bad for PAX East. I wonder if will die like PAX South. PAX West 2022 was larger than 2021 and seems to have had a more solid Nintendo presence, with prerelease Splatoon 3 and multiple Nintendo VS tournaments, as well as a number of third-party playable games. There was also a large Pokémon TCG area on the show floor. Perhaps West is a good venue for Nintendo of America since it is more local to their HQ in Redmond. I think there might be another big company near there also, though I'm not sure whether they will ever return to PAX etc..
  - 4y ago
allenu 4y ago
Is this part of a trend? Companies are realizing it's cheaper and more effective to just announce things online. WWDC 2023 is once again streaming only. I imagine that is much easier for them to put on as you can just record and edit the talks in advance. Still, it's a shame if we have fewer of these big events. For those who've attended anything like them, it's quite fun to see things in person and socialize.
- segasaturn 4y ago
  Something to take into consideration is "the cringe factor". E3 is infamous(?) for live presentations that go very poorly with the audience. Honestly for some people it was the show's main draw, to see moments like "giant enemy crab" or the Konami 2010 event. Companies like Nintendo realized that prerecorded videos are much, much safer.
- javchz 4y ago
  I think the E3 made a lot of sense in the time when most game news were trough magazines... but now, official channels from developers and console makers have an enormous reach so they don't have pressure to follow an external calendar. But yeah, I will miss the E3, was like Christmas eve to get hyped up about future releases. I hope hardware focused expos like CES or computex survive these trend shift
  - MBCook 4y ago
    Agreed. It was dying before Covid. Why should a company choose to make their announcements have to fight against every other announcement in the entire industry. That’s a great way for your story to be buried. If you hold your own event, it’s YOUR show. You can show what you want, when you want, your way. You don’t have to compete. You don’t have to pay someone else for the privilege. Aren’t some companies dropping out (or at least holding many announcements back) from CES as well? You no longer have to convince the press to cover you, you can reach your audience directly. For video games a trade show doesn’t make much sense.
    - jimbob45 4y ago
skee8383 4y ago
Might as well cancel it. The games are non-existent. and the quality of the games they have been releasing look like xbox 360 graphics. Not to mention Microsoft buying up every studio they can get their hands on.
- favorited 4y ago
  That's not why it's being cancelled. Most of the big players will still have press conferences and/or in-person events this summer, they are just doing them themselves rather than under the E3 umbrella.
dmarcos 4y ago
GDC took place last week in SF . Is it also at risk, does it have good reasons to still exist? edit: typo
- VHRanger 4y ago
  GDC is aimed at devs. E3 was aimed at the unwashed masses. Different audiences entirely. GDC is more like a trade conference.
  - isk517 4y ago
    E3 has traditionally been aimed at the media. It's only been in resent years that the general public has been allowed in, and even that move was seen by most as a attempt to keep the event from dying.
  - MBCook 4y ago
    E3 wasn’t aimed at normal people. It was aimed at the press. Then they would put the coverage of what they’re excited about in their magazines. Companies can now reach both the press and fans directly any time.
  - flohofwoe 4y ago
    > E3 was aimed at the unwashed masses. Back in its heyday E3 was purely a business event (e.g. you had to work in the games industry one way or another to be allowed in). Might have changed in recent years though, I didn't really pay attention anymore since around 2010 or so.
    - georgeecollins 4y ago
      Actually the first few E3 was open to anyone. Then for a few years they had a day where anyone could come. One of my happiest memories was demonstrating my game on the floor of E3 to fans. It was really nice to talk to gamers about the game after spending time with the retail chains and press. Then E3 got so big you had to be in the industry. Then another year they tried to move it to multiple venues. That is the core problem- who is E3 for? GDC is for game developers.
ParksNet 4y ago
AAA gaming - as we have known it - is dead as long as major platforms continue with 30% commissions. All of the profits accrue to the platform owners, with studios either failing or being acquired by them. The end result is a weak industry mostly dominated by skinner box free2play games or gambling apps.
- flohofwoe 4y ago
  AAA games are most likely doing better than ever. Which might exactly be the problem why E3 is no longer relevant. The platform owners and big game publishers now prefer to host their own announcement events at different times of the year instead of having to compete for gamer attention all within the same crammed time window of a few days.
mkl95 4y ago
I usually followed E3 for the Nintendo content. With Nintendo Direct events being so frequent and production values being so good, E3 makes no sense anymore.
danbolt 4y ago
For a bit of historical context, E3 was originally made as a trade show for visibility in the games industry. [1] Today, the video games industry has much different means of marketing and communications than we did in 1995. Perhaps YouTube streaming is the new E3? [1] https://archive.org/details/GamePro_Issue_056_March_1994/page/n179/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/GamePro_Issue_056_March_1994/pag...
- aceazzameen 4y ago
  Is E3 also too expensive? GDC and PAX seem to be doing better. I'm guessing they're cheaper and have a better ROI, but I really don't know.
  - erik 4y ago
    The focus of the event is a big part of it. GDC is a developer conference, and showcasing games in development is very small part of it. PAX is an event for gamers and while a lot of games do get showcased, it's not the main purpose of the event. Traditionally E3 was about developers showcasing games for the press. But that's always been a bit of a tough sell for a major event, and I'm not surprised it's struggling given the current media landscape.
  - mastax 4y ago
    Possibly, the ESA relied on it for revenue. Though PAX is run by a for profit event company, I think. PAX is better at managing a public event. E3 wasn't originally open to the public, and once they opened up it was never done very well. If publishers want to have that public convention thing, PAX is better. Letting the public in to E3 sort of ruined the industry insider aspect of the convention, all the meetings moved to hotel rooms so that people could hear each other.
lprd 4y ago
Personally, I think that AAA studios are due for a reality check. There's been _some_ decent releases from these studios in the past decade, but they are few and far between. I can't help but feel that these studios are very disconnected with their audience and have ultimately prioritized profits over passion. I know the bills need to be paid, but somewhere along the line it become more and more noticeable. The market consolidation that's happened (EA and Activision come to mind) has done nothing but hurt the industry. I'd like to call it a monopoly but I'm not certain if that's correct or not. Either way, the current landscape is not great. I've been gaming since the 90s and I'm generally unhappy with the current state of affairs. Thank god for indie devs! /end rant
- epolanski 4y ago
  > and have ultimately prioritized profits over passion Videogaming industry is going through its "Airbnb averaging effect" which already killed original movies in favor of remakes, reboots, sequels and the same formulas that are known sellers. At the end AAA studios require huge investments they will only produce products that will sell and risk very little.
  - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
    Do they? We are currently seeing the price of asset productions through AI dropping through the cellar floor. And what else remains then? Engine scripting? Can be done via CGPT. Level design.. My guess is that we are 3 years away from some indy studio showing up with a tripple AAA title out of nowhere..
- colonwqbang 4y ago
  Fortunately it's still possible to break into the games industry as an indie developer. You can be a solo developer and make a top selling game, if you're really good. Lucas Pope, Toby Fox, etc. So I don't think we are in any kind of monopoly situation, nor are we in danger of ending up there right now. The people who do buy AAA games, I suppose it's because they enjoy that sort of thing? I'm not really one of them.
andrewmcwatters 4y ago
Am I wrong, am I out of touch? I can't remember the last time a big banger came out. I look at the Steam top played list and it's the same stuff from like a decade or two ago. Yuck. The constant push for games to be living breathing things shoving microtransactions in my face instead of just being a purchased product doesn't help. The community should be living and breathing, not the changelogs that obnoxiously pop up when I'm trying to play a game.
- flohofwoe 4y ago
  Gaming has just become so popular that the top played games are a rather predictable "average" of the different tastes of a vast variety of gamers. But the average is always also quite boring (unless you're young and haven't seen this stuff yet a thousand times). You need to look into the niches and at the "genre edges" to find the interesting stuff. Especially Steam is full of really great "niche games". Just don't look at the top 10, you actively have to find the good stuff. Same with music btw.
- web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
  Elden Ring was a huge banger for me, probably the best game I've played in at least a decade and it absorbed my life for MONTHS. And it certainly doesn't have any of the stuff you're complaining about.
- epolanski 4y ago
  Elden Ring is one of the few AAAs that can be considered a banger by all metrics, but it too comes from a decade-old formula at this point.
  - klabb3 4y ago
    Death strandning was great. But a while ago now..
  - Ntrails 4y ago
    It was my first game of the genre and holy shit fo I not get it at all. The only aspect I loved was the world visuals/themes/area transitions. Actual gameplay was not really fun for me
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
Tradeshows for videogames is kindof an outdated concept now with every game company having easy access to live streaming and social media. I grew up with E3 and I'm a little sad to see it go, but that's just the world changing and becoming more efficient.
- silisili 4y ago
  Agreed and disagreed. Trade shows, E3 in particular, was where studios gave you a taste, a preview, an announcement, got you excited. All in one place. I'd often read all the happenings next day for things to keep on my radar. Sure, studios can just announce and stream themselves whenever, but for some market of people who hopefully isn't just me, I don't have time or will to follow every studio or read gaming news with any cadence, so I won't know what's coming. But maybe that's just me getting old.
  - web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
    > Trade shows, E3 in particular, was where studios gave you a taste, a preview, an announcement, got you excited All of this has moved to The Game Awards now, probably because companies don't necessarily need to actually pay to attend. PAX is also still a thing. > But maybe that's just me getting old. Probably - all of the eyeballs are on twitter/youtube/facebook now and they can pay to shove themselves into your feed. Companies get more bank for their buck spending their millions of advertising budget on those platforms rather than spending that money on a day or two at a tradeshow.
prmoustache 4y ago
E3 hasn't be cancelled. It took place a week ago and was won by Wout Van Aert in front of Mathieu Van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar Oh wait, that E3? Who cares?
paxys 4y ago
Over the last couple of decades the video gaming industry has consolidated into Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and a long tail of indie developers. The big players all have their own events, so there's really no one left to pay conferences like E3 big bucks for publicity.
aerhardt 4y ago
I worked at Nintendo as a Product Manager from 2010 to 2014. I loved my time there to bits - the people, the culture, the products, and the business were great. They make the only games I still play occasionally. I frequently get asked: "Why did you leave"? The main reason is I saw the writings on the wall. The industry was turning to pay-to-win garbage, and although I had already seen a similar pattern with arcades as a kid, that's not what I had signed up for. > The email said that while E3 "remains a beloved event and brand" that the 2023 version "simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary to execute it in a way that would showcase the size, strength, and impact of our industry." The size, strength and impact of the industry is measured in billions of dollars and eye-watering margins, much larger than when I left, but... As it turns out, an annual event for neuropsychologically optimized, dopamine-exploiting, cash-harvesting, artistically low-effort mobile games, with the occasional worthy AAA or indie game sparkled in, doesn't pan out. Color me surprised. And thankful, that while these games make billions - like gambling - no one gathers 'round to celebrate.
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  > The main reason is I saw the writings on the wall. The industry was turning to pay-to-win garbage, and although I had already seen a similar pattern with arcades as a kid, that's not what I had signed up for. I don't really think Nintendo has though? (Outside of a few of their mobile games, but that never seemed to be a significant part of their business.)
  - aerhardt 4y ago
    > I really don't think Nintendo has though? No, not in my opinion. Even what they've done with mobile games (ex: Fire Emblem) has been tasteful. Nintendo is obsessed with family values, in an honest way that comes from a place of genuine good. If you want to work for one of the very last beacons of hope in the industry, go work there.
    - hedora 4y ago
      Yeah, my only complaint with nintendo is that they need to either allow returns on their online store, or ban ubisoft. They sold me one hot garbage title (the demo was fine; can’t get past the load screen of the paid version). I’m never paying ubisoft again.
tjpnz 4y ago
After what they were proposing for 2020, good fucking riddance. They can take their influencers and "high profile celebrity activations" and shove it.
andrewstuart 4y ago
April fools?

137 points by haunter 4y ago

Kye 4y ago

I thought E3 ended ages ago with more companies going direct. That's probably why they weren't able to get enough interest: between people who are sure they remember either a shutdown or a major change and actual structural changes, there weren't enough people.

C-x_C-f 4y ago

On the one hand I'm happy that gaming is gaining recognition in a way that makes it a more sustainable career option; on the other hand it's clear that once enough money starts flowing in, more or less organic & authentic community endeavors like E3 are going to be the first to go, all in favor of siloing (I'd wager big players not attending is more of a management decision than anything else).

Kye 4y ago
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but E3 was always run by and for big companies. It's never been an organic or community-led effort. The ESA is not a collection of indies or average folk.
- C-x_C-f 4y ago
  I didn't mean to say it was a grassroots effort, just that it brought people together without too much of an artificial facade. Sure, at the bottom it was an advertisement event, but it's still fun when everything is in the same place. Now it feels like the big companies are at each other's throat and there's somewhat less of an ability to just have fun. Then again, maybe I just contracted a case of rose-tinted glasses.
  - ihateyouall123 4y ago
    It wasn't really a public convention. It is only designed to bring in people from the industry. This isn't comic-con.
    - tayo42 4y ago
      it used to be like almost 20 years ago lol, at some point it went invite only or something more exclusive. i remember it seemed like a big event when i was a kid and used to get hyped for content
dragontamer 4y ago
> organic & authentic community endeavors like E3 ??? From my understanding E3 became irrelevant years ago. Most indie-video game announcements are coming in at like, PAX instead... or other conventions that are more authentic. E3 was a gaming-news icon, but it just hasn't kept up with the times. It has no niche and was pulled apart by more specialized conventions. Organic authenticity is better from smaller conventions... while corporate news would rather be Nintendo Direct or other such Youtube/Direct media and marketing.

livelielife 4y ago

can we say it died after a severe case of Covid19?

flohofwoe 4y ago
I think E3 was already kind of an hollowed out husk in the years before, for instance Sony already skipped and did their own thing in 2019: https://gamerant.com/sony-skip-e3-2019-why/ https://gamerant.com/sony-skip-e3-2019-why/ This article also reads like the writing was already on the wall: https://www.indiewire.com/2020/06/e3-uncertain-future-gaming-event-analysis-1234569962/ https://www.indiewire.com/2020/06/e3-uncertain-future-gaming... Covid at most accelerated its death by a year or two.
- MBCook 4y ago
  All it really did was officially prove nothing bad happened when E3 wasn’t held. Which almost everyone seemed to have already suspected.
mkl95 4y ago
It started dying in the early 2010s / late 2000s. Kids stopped buying fat monthly magazines to learn about new games and started consuming all that information online, for free.
yieldcrv 4y ago
died from a lack of feminine energy, since different people got them to neuter it. and look at that, nobody's interested. should have taken a page out of the promoter and hospitality economy, kept it sexy and ignored people uncomfortable with that. because in hindsight, that was inclusion too.
- shlubbert 4y ago
  What?
  - yieldcrv 4y ago

romusha 4y ago

The age of that "wonder" feeling when you see a new game has ended. Most people already know what's going to be showns in E3, mostly things they don't care about

OJFord 4y ago
Has it? Or has it just ended for you? I don't really game at all any more, I just mean maybe teenagers are just as hyped as we were then; the age hasn't passed, but we've aged.
- dylan604 4y ago
  That still doesn't change the fact that the release news has changed drastically. Sure, teenagers today probably like to game more than yesteryear's teenagers that are all middleaged boomers now. News at 11! The point isn't a lack of nostalgia, it's that there's no mystery to reveal at a big show. Studios release teasers, arrange for "leaks", or any other ways of keeping they hype machine rolling.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    But is that new, or do we become wise to it with age?
    - dylan604 4y ago
      really? 24/7 live coverage via streaming from the likes of youtube, twitch, or which ever social platform of choice delivered straight to your eye holes with a pestering notification for immediate consumption vs maybe receiving a magazine in the mail or at the newstand once a month. yeah, sounds the same thing to me. nothing new has changed here at all. i get you trying to check the nostalgia, but if you think news delivery is any where close to the same today as it was in the 90s, you must have had some future tech available to you in the 90s
- strken 4y ago
  In an objective sense, more new releases today are continuations of existing franchises than they were in the 90s. See https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average, which was on the front page earlier this week. Subjectively, the few teens I interact with seem hyped for new installments in old franchises, updates to existing games with more content, or remakes of old classics. I don't think there's as much excitement for new franchises, because of a wave of overpromising over the last decade.

haunter 4y ago

Feels like when Apple stopped going to the Macworld Expos then they just shut down

NovaDudely 4y ago
Oh yeah, they tried to continue without Apple but most of those claiming they would be fine had that thousand mile stare . They knew it was done, just didn't want to admit it that quickly.
musicale 4y ago
Nintendo and Square Enix still seem to be interested in in-person events, but I wonder about Microsoft and Sony as well as AAA developers in general. I imagine PAX will survive as a largely indie/tabletop/fan convention.
- Reubachi 4y ago
  Nintendo at PAX East this year had about 30 consoles set up for mario kart, and tangentially a pokemon card game setup. No new releases or anything to promote that isn't already heavily monetized. I'd say the floor of pax was about 20 percent emptier than last year, which was already abouu 30 percent emptier than pre-covid. Indie area was down by about half which was the biggest writing on the wall to me. Tabletop still going strong, but the vendors associated with them where also hit hard.
  - musicale 4y ago
    Hmm, 20% emptier than last year sounds bad for PAX East. I wonder if will die like PAX South. PAX West 2022 was larger than 2021 and seems to have had a more solid Nintendo presence, with prerelease Splatoon 3 and multiple Nintendo VS tournaments, as well as a number of third-party playable games. There was also a large Pokémon TCG area on the show floor. Perhaps West is a good venue for Nintendo of America since it is more local to their HQ in Redmond. I think there might be another big company near there also, though I'm not sure whether they will ever return to PAX etc..
- 4y ago

allenu 4y ago

Is this part of a trend? Companies are realizing it's cheaper and more effective to just announce things online. WWDC 2023 is once again streaming only. I imagine that is much easier for them to put on as you can just record and edit the talks in advance. Still, it's a shame if we have fewer of these big events. For those who've attended anything like them, it's quite fun to see things in person and socialize.

segasaturn 4y ago
Something to take into consideration is "the cringe factor". E3 is infamous(?) for live presentations that go very poorly with the audience. Honestly for some people it was the show's main draw, to see moments like "giant enemy crab" or the Konami 2010 event. Companies like Nintendo realized that prerecorded videos are much, much safer.
javchz 4y ago
I think the E3 made a lot of sense in the time when most game news were trough magazines... but now, official channels from developers and console makers have an enormous reach so they don't have pressure to follow an external calendar. But yeah, I will miss the E3, was like Christmas eve to get hyped up about future releases. I hope hardware focused expos like CES or computex survive these trend shift
- MBCook 4y ago
  Agreed. It was dying before Covid. Why should a company choose to make their announcements have to fight against every other announcement in the entire industry. That’s a great way for your story to be buried. If you hold your own event, it’s YOUR show. You can show what you want, when you want, your way. You don’t have to compete. You don’t have to pay someone else for the privilege. Aren’t some companies dropping out (or at least holding many announcements back) from CES as well? You no longer have to convince the press to cover you, you can reach your audience directly. For video games a trade show doesn’t make much sense.
  - jimbob45 4y ago

skee8383 4y ago

Might as well cancel it. The games are non-existent. and the quality of the games they have been releasing look like xbox 360 graphics. Not to mention Microsoft buying up every studio they can get their hands on.

favorited 4y ago
That's not why it's being cancelled. Most of the big players will still have press conferences and/or in-person events this summer, they are just doing them themselves rather than under the E3 umbrella.

dmarcos 4y ago

GDC took place last week in SF . Is it also at risk, does it have good reasons to still exist? edit: typo

VHRanger 4y ago
GDC is aimed at devs. E3 was aimed at the unwashed masses. Different audiences entirely. GDC is more like a trade conference.
- isk517 4y ago
  E3 has traditionally been aimed at the media. It's only been in resent years that the general public has been allowed in, and even that move was seen by most as a attempt to keep the event from dying.
- MBCook 4y ago
  E3 wasn’t aimed at normal people. It was aimed at the press. Then they would put the coverage of what they’re excited about in their magazines. Companies can now reach both the press and fans directly any time.
- flohofwoe 4y ago
  > E3 was aimed at the unwashed masses. Back in its heyday E3 was purely a business event (e.g. you had to work in the games industry one way or another to be allowed in). Might have changed in recent years though, I didn't really pay attention anymore since around 2010 or so.
  - georgeecollins 4y ago
    Actually the first few E3 was open to anyone. Then for a few years they had a day where anyone could come. One of my happiest memories was demonstrating my game on the floor of E3 to fans. It was really nice to talk to gamers about the game after spending time with the retail chains and press. Then E3 got so big you had to be in the industry. Then another year they tried to move it to multiple venues. That is the core problem- who is E3 for? GDC is for game developers.

ParksNet 4y ago

AAA gaming - as we have known it - is dead as long as major platforms continue with 30% commissions. All of the profits accrue to the platform owners, with studios either failing or being acquired by them. The end result is a weak industry mostly dominated by skinner box free2play games or gambling apps.

flohofwoe 4y ago
AAA games are most likely doing better than ever. Which might exactly be the problem why E3 is no longer relevant. The platform owners and big game publishers now prefer to host their own announcement events at different times of the year instead of having to compete for gamer attention all within the same crammed time window of a few days.

mkl95 4y ago

I usually followed E3 for the Nintendo content. With Nintendo Direct events being so frequent and production values being so good, E3 makes no sense anymore.

danbolt 4y ago

For a bit of historical context, E3 was originally made as a trade show for visibility in the games industry. [1] Today, the video games industry has much different means of marketing and communications than we did in 1995. Perhaps YouTube streaming is the new E3? [1] https://archive.org/details/GamePro_Issue_056_March_1994/page/n179/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/GamePro_Issue_056_March_1994/pag...

aceazzameen 4y ago
Is E3 also too expensive? GDC and PAX seem to be doing better. I'm guessing they're cheaper and have a better ROI, but I really don't know.
- erik 4y ago
  The focus of the event is a big part of it. GDC is a developer conference, and showcasing games in development is very small part of it. PAX is an event for gamers and while a lot of games do get showcased, it's not the main purpose of the event. Traditionally E3 was about developers showcasing games for the press. But that's always been a bit of a tough sell for a major event, and I'm not surprised it's struggling given the current media landscape.
- mastax 4y ago
  Possibly, the ESA relied on it for revenue. Though PAX is run by a for profit event company, I think. PAX is better at managing a public event. E3 wasn't originally open to the public, and once they opened up it was never done very well. If publishers want to have that public convention thing, PAX is better. Letting the public in to E3 sort of ruined the industry insider aspect of the convention, all the meetings moved to hotel rooms so that people could hear each other.

lprd 4y ago

Personally, I think that AAA studios are due for a reality check. There's been _some_ decent releases from these studios in the past decade, but they are few and far between. I can't help but feel that these studios are very disconnected with their audience and have ultimately prioritized profits over passion. I know the bills need to be paid, but somewhere along the line it become more and more noticeable. The market consolidation that's happened (EA and Activision come to mind) has done nothing but hurt the industry. I'd like to call it a monopoly but I'm not certain if that's correct or not. Either way, the current landscape is not great. I've been gaming since the 90s and I'm generally unhappy with the current state of affairs. Thank god for indie devs! /end rant

epolanski 4y ago
> and have ultimately prioritized profits over passion Videogaming industry is going through its "Airbnb averaging effect" which already killed original movies in favor of remakes, reboots, sequels and the same formulas that are known sellers. At the end AAA studios require huge investments they will only produce products that will sell and risk very little.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  Do they? We are currently seeing the price of asset productions through AI dropping through the cellar floor. And what else remains then? Engine scripting? Can be done via CGPT. Level design.. My guess is that we are 3 years away from some indy studio showing up with a tripple AAA title out of nowhere..
colonwqbang 4y ago
Fortunately it's still possible to break into the games industry as an indie developer. You can be a solo developer and make a top selling game, if you're really good. Lucas Pope, Toby Fox, etc. So I don't think we are in any kind of monopoly situation, nor are we in danger of ending up there right now. The people who do buy AAA games, I suppose it's because they enjoy that sort of thing? I'm not really one of them.

andrewmcwatters 4y ago

Am I wrong, am I out of touch? I can't remember the last time a big banger came out. I look at the Steam top played list and it's the same stuff from like a decade or two ago. Yuck. The constant push for games to be living breathing things shoving microtransactions in my face instead of just being a purchased product doesn't help. The community should be living and breathing, not the changelogs that obnoxiously pop up when I'm trying to play a game.

flohofwoe 4y ago
Gaming has just become so popular that the top played games are a rather predictable "average" of the different tastes of a vast variety of gamers. But the average is always also quite boring (unless you're young and haven't seen this stuff yet a thousand times). You need to look into the niches and at the "genre edges" to find the interesting stuff. Especially Steam is full of really great "niche games". Just don't look at the top 10, you actively have to find the good stuff. Same with music btw.
web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
Elden Ring was a huge banger for me, probably the best game I've played in at least a decade and it absorbed my life for MONTHS. And it certainly doesn't have any of the stuff you're complaining about.
epolanski 4y ago
Elden Ring is one of the few AAAs that can be considered a banger by all metrics, but it too comes from a decade-old formula at this point.
- klabb3 4y ago
  Death strandning was great. But a while ago now..
- Ntrails 4y ago
  It was my first game of the genre and holy shit fo I not get it at all. The only aspect I loved was the world visuals/themes/area transitions. Actual gameplay was not really fun for me

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web3-is-a-scam 4y ago

Tradeshows for videogames is kindof an outdated concept now with every game company having easy access to live streaming and social media. I grew up with E3 and I'm a little sad to see it go, but that's just the world changing and becoming more efficient.

silisili 4y ago
Agreed and disagreed. Trade shows, E3 in particular, was where studios gave you a taste, a preview, an announcement, got you excited. All in one place. I'd often read all the happenings next day for things to keep on my radar. Sure, studios can just announce and stream themselves whenever, but for some market of people who hopefully isn't just me, I don't have time or will to follow every studio or read gaming news with any cadence, so I won't know what's coming. But maybe that's just me getting old.
- web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
  > Trade shows, E3 in particular, was where studios gave you a taste, a preview, an announcement, got you excited All of this has moved to The Game Awards now, probably because companies don't necessarily need to actually pay to attend. PAX is also still a thing. > But maybe that's just me getting old. Probably - all of the eyeballs are on twitter/youtube/facebook now and they can pay to shove themselves into your feed. Companies get more bank for their buck spending their millions of advertising budget on those platforms rather than spending that money on a day or two at a tradeshow.

prmoustache 4y ago

E3 hasn't be cancelled. It took place a week ago and was won by Wout Van Aert in front of Mathieu Van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar Oh wait, that E3? Who cares?

paxys 4y ago

Over the last couple of decades the video gaming industry has consolidated into Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and a long tail of indie developers. The big players all have their own events, so there's really no one left to pay conferences like E3 big bucks for publicity.

aerhardt 4y ago

I worked at Nintendo as a Product Manager from 2010 to 2014. I loved my time there to bits - the people, the culture, the products, and the business were great. They make the only games I still play occasionally. I frequently get asked: "Why did you leave"? The main reason is I saw the writings on the wall. The industry was turning to pay-to-win garbage, and although I had already seen a similar pattern with arcades as a kid, that's not what I had signed up for. > The email said that while E3 "remains a beloved event and brand" that the 2023 version "simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary to execute it in a way that would showcase the size, strength, and impact of our industry." The size, strength and impact of the industry is measured in billions of dollars and eye-watering margins, much larger than when I left, but... As it turns out, an annual event for neuropsychologically optimized, dopamine-exploiting, cash-harvesting, artistically low-effort mobile games, with the occasional worthy AAA or indie game sparkled in, doesn't pan out. Color me surprised. And thankful, that while these games make billions - like gambling - no one gathers 'round to celebrate.

Wowfunhappy 4y ago
> The main reason is I saw the writings on the wall. The industry was turning to pay-to-win garbage, and although I had already seen a similar pattern with arcades as a kid, that's not what I had signed up for. I don't really think Nintendo has though? (Outside of a few of their mobile games, but that never seemed to be a significant part of their business.)
- aerhardt 4y ago
  > I really don't think Nintendo has though? No, not in my opinion. Even what they've done with mobile games (ex: Fire Emblem) has been tasteful. Nintendo is obsessed with family values, in an honest way that comes from a place of genuine good. If you want to work for one of the very last beacons of hope in the industry, go work there.
  - hedora 4y ago
    Yeah, my only complaint with nintendo is that they need to either allow returns on their online store, or ban ubisoft. They sold me one hot garbage title (the demo was fine; can’t get past the load screen of the paid version). I’m never paying ubisoft again.

tjpnz 4y ago

After what they were proposing for 2020, good fucking riddance. They can take their influencers and "high profile celebrity activations" and shove it.

andrewstuart 4y ago

April fools?