this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023

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E3 is officially dead (www.eurogamer.net)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

E3 has had a foot in the grave for the last ten years. The availability of the internet kinda invalidated any need for expensive physical conventions. When they changed their rules to allow the general public to attend, that was a pretty clear death rattle, imo. And the Big 3 all pretty much pulling out entirely and doing their own streamed announcement events didn't help matters. Covid also ended up killing whatever momentum E3 had left. Basically everything was stacked against E3 for a long while now.

Super disappointing, but also super expected, honestly. See you in the next life, giant enemy crabs.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

I honestly think it's all the in-house directs now that really killed it. The sad thing is now they all get to control their narratives and put on a pretty, but tightly produced/curated show and we all lose the little snipes back and forth and comparisons that happen at events like E3. It felt more...gladiatorial, I guess?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Some of my favorite E3 memories are pre-youtube watching SHADY ass streams in 144p of E3 coverage.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

"...Sony Computer Entertainment President of America, Steve Race joins me for a brief presentation."

"299."

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Did you know they're based on Japanese history?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (1 children)

RIP. Went to 3 E3 conferences back to back at the end of their golden years. Boy was it a glorious spectacle that I’m thankful I got to experience.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Good riddance. The Game Awards next please.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think there's absolutely a space for an industry achievement/recognition award like the Oscar, Tony, etc. The Game Awards just seems like the most cynical attempt at forcing one into the video game space.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What I don't get about all the criticism lobbied at The Game Awards is that other gaming award shows do exist, and have existed, but people don't fucking watch them and then they criticize TGA for doing what other awards shows didn't: get millions to actually watch it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Like what? The BAFTA?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

I kind of miss seeing the pot shots they all took at each other at E3 tbh

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

It's a shame. The GamesCom in Europe seems to be doing quite well so it's not really a matter of "conferences are dead".

I know conferences are no longer a place for big announcements. There's no more need to gather all the press in one place, they can just do it online now, at a dedicated time when they're not competing with other announcements in the industry. But as a visitor I really enjoyed going to GamesCom. Never been to the US so the E3 is not a thing for me but I'm sure this will have knock-on effects globally.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I can't speak for Gamescom, but PAX East has been shrinking, too. Exhibitors don't want to show up. They've been doing that thing you did in high school to pad your essays by increasing the margins on the side to make it look you wrote more than you did. Except instead of an essay, it's a show floor.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Good riddance. E3 offered nothing over just watching trailers on YT except for the multiple hours of advertisements and marketing pushed throughout the convention.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

The industry only exists in its current form because of hype and fomo.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I mean tbh at the height of the show the press conferences were awesome. The shows didn't have ads (unless you count the games themselves being ads which like, fair I guess). Idk I loved tuning into the shows and seeing announcement after announcement. Sonys 2016 show was a particular highlight. Having a live orchestra to do all the music even during the trailers was a really cool performance imo. It was more than just trailers

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Member the "Booth Babes?"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Sad. We will just end up with geoff keighley's shitty events now.

Gamescom is still doing well though.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What's wrong with Keighley's events? I've been enjoying them, myself. This year's Game Awards was kind of a snoozefest, admittedly, but I feel like his shows have a pretty good vibe for the most part.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

They are just massive advertising circle-jerks.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I mean, that's exactly what E3 had always been in the first place, too. Developers/publishers only showed up to advertise upcoming releases. Only instead of 3 hours of ads a year, it was 3 days of ads. Yeah, we got a lot of cool insider interviews from E3, but even those are just ads.

If advertising is the issue, E3 was a far worse offender than any of Keighley's productions, imo.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Of course its ads, but the main focus was the convention and not the streams. The crowds were fans and lots of developers got to show off their games. The game awards is just the worse part of e3 amplified, the awards themselves mean absolutely nothing, they are skipped over anyway, but imo gaming doesnt need an awards show, it's silly. The rest is just publishers paying for segments and a bunch of devs and random celebrities sit and watch in the crowd. I don't know how anyone sits and watches it. E3 was fun cause you could watch anyones perspective as they walked around and did interviews, met people etc, or even better if you could make it there yourself.

It was like computex of the gaming world, where any journalist could come and take part, which is not like geoff's bs at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

That's fair. I guess you and I got different things out of E3, then. I mostly only followed the news on the game announcements, and not so much on the experiences on the show floor.

For me, I only really tuned in for the ads, because that's how I would keep up to date with the gaming scene before I had the internet in my pocket.

I kinda have the same takeaway for Keighley's shows. I don't even really care too much about most of the awards (Like, who cares about Best eSports Coach? Why is that even a category?) except for GOTY and maybe a few others like Best Performance. I'm mostly just watching for the trailers, myself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah if you just watch the big players' streams from E3 then I can see the similarities.

Games don't need awards, it's just all subjective anyway and just gives the cringe oscars vibe of 'patting ourselves on the back'. You know if a game is good by it's player reviews and how many friends have told you to play it etc, we don't need a random set of judges deciding for us behind the scenes what the best games are.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well, The Game Awards are voted for by the players, not some panel of industry suits.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

No, the players choose the player's choice winner and contribute only 10% towards the actual winners.

The games are nominated by a committee, the committee of 'game news organisations' is chosen by the 'advisory board' of the game awards, the board consists of Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, Sony, Microsoft, Valve, Nintendo, Tencent, AMD, Riot Games, Rockstar Games, Epic Games and for some reason Kojima Productions. So they have the choice to pick their favourable 'news' outlets, which in turn will pick the nominees and the winners of the awards. There's a lot of room for bullshittery to happen and with some past winners/nominees, I wouldn't doubt there has been.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Isn't that what E3 also was? xD

All of these award ceremonies and cons are just advertising for the latest games or games that are releasing soon. Companies aren't building games out of charity, but because they make money for their shareholders and occasionally, a private company.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Yes... but E3 allowed smaller devs to get an audience and allow people to try their games for early feedback, it was a place for gamers to go and experience new games, meet people in the industry etc. The game awards is literally just a 3 hour long advert for the highest bidders. The game awards doesn't give a shit about anything but the money they are rolling in, they get more and more shameless with it each year, a lot of developers complained this year as they were quickly ushered off stage to make way for the next big advert.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If you think E3 was a more welcoming venue for indie studios, you'd be mistaken. Getting a booth or presentation slot at E3 was insanely expensive. If Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft didn't think it was worth their money to have even a booth presence on the show floor, you can probably imagine how prohibitive it was for smaller studios.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

People like Xbox would show off more games, from smaller devs, you can do a lot more in 3 days than you can in 3 hours. It was sad when they pulled out, that was the writing on the wall for E3, but its not even comparable to the game awards lmao, which is literally just a 3 hour ad break.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Fair enough!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah. Ive seen this same article posted every year since Sony premiered Ghost of Tsushima across the road from the LACC. Before that, they said it was dead when they banned booth babes. It also hasnt existed for the last 3 years.

We are very well aware it's dead.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Well yeah but the esa was still trying to keep it running. This is the final announcement that they aren't even trying anymore. It's done done this time

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I had some fun going in 2018 with friends, but it definitely felt like a theme park with lines everywhere for demos. Maybe there's room for something to take its place focused on those demos or community events, rather than announcements that most visitors couldn't attend anyway.