What is Digg?23 Comments
- bitterg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14E3 was funm exciting, and something to look forward to. Now it's turning into an exclusivity game which will be dominated by the media. This leaves Tokyo Game Show and Liepzig as the only big shows, so nothing in North America. That's sad.
- strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10PAX is pretty damn big and focused on the consumer, not the media and developers/publishers.
http://www.pennyarcadeexpo.com/ - akinder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I can see from the negative diggs that noone understood what I was trying to get across.
The free publicity was great, but only certain people understand things like that. You can imagine the PR people trying to explain to the guys with the purse strings that "well, we spend $150,000 on E3 and we get all these blog postings and more people know about it." The first thing the exec is going to ask is, where is the on paper / in a pretty powerpoint graph that shows the exact return?
I'm not saying E3 is better because of the change, it really disappoints me because I was wanting to go next year. - duhblow7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@akinder
I agree with you. E3 was supposed to be an industry only event. If you went to an E3 10 years ago then went to the event this year you would notice the dramatic change from very business to very casual. Companies want spend a ton of money to show off their products and most of the execs will be at the show. This allows companies to schedule meetings with people that isn't normally possible. The volume of meaningful meetings at an event like E3 is one of the main reasons a lot of companies go.
Return on investment with high level execs forming relationships with possible clients dramatically exceeds the ROI on the impact of the blogosphere of a particular client at a particular event.
E3 went from a place where businesses can network to a zoo of teenagers. As I would wonder the halls of E3 I would wonder how so many pimple faced teenagers made their way into an industry only event. The people that funded this event wondered the same things.
E3 became a zoo, ROI was in the red, the organizers saw this and things had to be changed. End of story.
I do agree that there is a void in Northern USA for an entertainment expo (not like the one in Las Vegas) that is open to the public where companies can show off the goodies. E3 became it, but wasn't meant for it.
To the guy who had the "unprecedented coverage" of RockStar games:
I didn't see any "coverage" of the GOD (Gathering of Developers) girls dressed like catholic school girls at the party across the street from E3 getting naked on the big screens back pre-9/11. You missed the good stuff. :) - Frecklefoot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Well, I liked E3 (first time I saw a video clip on The Sims and got all excited about it), it was a lot of fun. But, except for that one video clip I saw, I didn't see the point. Booth babes, flashing lights, contests for T-shirts... it just seemed like a lot of money spent over nothing. But I wasn't one of the people placing orders for games for Christmas either: I was just demo-ing my company's latest game.
I only had to spend a couple of hours in the booth, so I got a lot of time to walk around and see things. I did think it was fun, but kind of pointless: "Ooo! Blizzard is coming out with Diablo 2." But I already knew that (forget about trying to play it--line longer than the Mississippi). "Sega's Dreamcast is out!" But I already knew that too. "Come play in this cool VR vehicle!" Fun, but, what, are you going to try and sell that to consumers?
The big point here is that E3 was supposed to be for the media, generate buzz for upcoming games. But it turned into a circus because a lot of non-media people (like me in '99) come along and just create hassles and show floor congestion.
The other big thing is that game developers spent a lot of time and money developing a demo for E3. Typically, a few months before E3, the developer would spin-off a version of the source code from the common baseline to develop the demo. Several developers would work on it, fixing partial features here, disabling others there, fixing graphic glitches over there, replacing stand-in art here and here. All this work was just for a demo for E3. Almost none of that work could be worked back into the "real" game code, and the company was essentially out thousands of dollars just for an E3 demo. And who knows if they ever recouped that money in future sales?
Contrary to popular belief, no one can just "halt" development on a game at an arbitrary point and have it ready to be seen by the public. Unfinished games look and play like crap. The E3 demo was a sinkhole for money and development hours--development hours that could've actually gone into finishing the game. - pennyfan87, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4this still doesn't beat Spectacle Fest 2008
www.spectaclefest.com - dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"Basically, they weren't getting a good return, so they're revamping everything to aim more at the business world, which does have the big bucks to spend on gadgets."
No. What we lose is objective looks at games on the horizon. We can't trust the media to report back to us on how games are shaping up, because they're in the pockets of all the big publishers. It's a little interesting to me that, after a couple decades, they decide to close up shop just as the blogosphere is hitting its stride. - flamingmb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@ akinder
oh they were getting it back, think how many promo videos got onto the internet and onto digg, its free publicity in a sense. They go to E3 to wow the exclusive people but also to get buzz going about their product, with people going away from E3 and posting vids and blogs about the stuff. I am sure they get their return. - Qenton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3E3 was getting more and more useless to the "big" companies. The ones that spend all the money at the show.
First: Too early to accurately predict what titles would be available at Christmas. Planning shelf space is one of the primary focuses of E3 is. You will know about July/August if a title will 95% make it for Christmas. May was just a too early. Back when it was at CES in January it was impossible.
Second: Not the right time for a media blitz type of show. August/September is where you want that type of show. Like the Japanese one.
So E3 might be an internal event but you will probably see another show come into existence. The amount of time that a show like that will give you on news channels is much better than TIVO'd through commercials or flipped by magazine ads. - flamingmb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I liked E3, they should bring it back in all its glory. Its all we had...
- zbeast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The old E3 will be missed.
It was a change to see and touch the latest in game technology.
it was also a way to see what the competition was doing.
Now how will the public get there game information?
xplay is how I get the low down on whats hot and that shows about to get
canceled with the death of G4.
So it's back to game review mags. When was the last time you've read a game
review and had it tell you the Truth about a game or hardware.
There in the pockets of the Manufactures.
So once again a dark cloud seals of the infomation in the gaming world. - rheaume, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In the industry for 6 years and could never afford it, went to Thailand, bali, Hawaii, places like that instead. Always kept saying "next year, next year' and now its over as we know it. maybe it will be more fun without the drones? Hopefully.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1But what exactly do you do that would have qualified you to go into the show in past years?
- LogicBomB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm finally at the age when travelling to a convention for fun is financially possible. Go figure E3 dies that same year.
- zephc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1and E3 becomes even MORE irrelevant.
- Kypt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12 words
last week...
:P - musntSurfatWork, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I miss the games made by unknown startup guys, became instant classics, provided support, and did not hide behind corporate labels such as EA. Those days are gone. Screw the Corporations.
- akinder, on 10/12/2007, -10/+8Realistically you can't really blame them, they were pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into E3 ( from a company perspective ), and most people that were showing up and 'hanging out' weren't putting any money into what the company had for show.
Basically, they weren't getting a good return, so they're revamping everything to aim more at the business world, which does have the big bucks to spend on gadgets. - Lososaurus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11 word: WEAK!
- cwcentral, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Old story, but nonetheless, they are obviously taking the SEMA approach to trade shows. Makes sense with the way products sell.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1I went the past three years to the show with a media pass and hope I can go back to cover the event again. I brought unprecedented coverage of Rockstar Games' happenings to my website...first info of San Andreas anywhere online...interviews with developers...etc...and now it will all be censored and filtered by larger media that don't know the good questions to ask nor do they have the time to cover certain games in-depth. Just look at the stuff I did last year:
http://planetgrandtheftauto.gamespy.com/e3
1. Complete Wii Booth Tour - uploaded on E3 Day One before the show even ended...
2. Complete PS3 Area Tour - uploaded on E3 Day One before the show even ended
3. Interviews with developers...
4. Constant blog...
Now you lose all of that and it just sucks. It's sad really. Now we have media that only covers the broad scope of stuff.
Sad. - TehDuct, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0question... is it public if not ill find a way to go....
- LordDshyzL, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0old story
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