Clean

Where did E3 go?

Published Jun 13, 2023, 3:20 PM

The 2023 E3 event was supposed to happen this week, but like last year the event never happened. Now some are saying it may never happen again. What brought about the decline of E3?

Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech are you now? In case you're listening to this episode from the future, I hope things are going well there. It originally published on June twelfth, twenty twenty three. This week was supposed to serve as a triumphant return for one of the more famous tech conferences here in the United States, that of E three aka the Electronic Entertainment Expo. At least for most years. It was intended to happen from June thirteenth to the sixteenth, but earlier this year, the Entertainment Software Association or ESA announced that the event was not going to happen after all. Now, folks have been predicting the death of E three or a really long time now, like more than a decade, for lots of different reasons. And in the void left by E three, we've seen the rise of the Summer Game Fest held by Jeff Keeley. In fact, the twenty twenty three Summer Game Fest launched last week, and some game companies are still hosting streams showing off upcoming titles today and this week. But what the heck happened with E three? What caused that event to fall apart? And why were so many people not surprised by it? And could it actually be gone for good? Now, to answer those questions, we first need to remind ourselves about what E three is all about and why it exists in the first place. Then we can talk about some of the factors that have contributed to E three's decline in the industry. So first up, let's go back to that organization I had mentioned earlier, the EESA. Now, the original name for that organization was the Interactive Digital Software Association or IDSSA, which launched in nineteen ninety four as a response to an existential threat to the video game industry, namely the United States Congress. For years, video games had been seen as being relatively simplistic. It was a common assumption among certain demographics of the population the video games were just toys, they're distractions for children, and that games are meant for kids. If you were over the age of fifteen and you admitted that you liked video games, you'd probably get some curious looks from older folks, and they might write you off as being childish. And so when it became obvious that video games had evolved well beyond pac Man and Cubert, some leaders got very concerned, very quickly, mostly because they were still operating under this mistaken assumption that all games are just for kids. In nineteen ninety two, we got the first Mortal Kombat game. Now, that game purposefully pushed the envelope when it came to depicting violence on screen, although by today's standards you would have to call it almost quaint in comparison, particularly if you compare it with more recent Mortal Kombat titles that go far, far harder when it comes to graphic violence and gore. But the Mortal Kombat, the original Mortal Kombat, absolutely horrified some of the more shall we say, reserved folks in Congress. And so there was this rising threat that the US government was going to create regulations for the video game industry and perhaps pass legislation that would severely hurt video game companies. To head off that possibility, the various major video game companies banded together and they formed an independent agency, which at that time was the IDSA, and I think it was two thousand and three when it would turn into the ESA. Now it would be this group's responsibility to represent the industry as a whole to lawmakers and to create a ratings system that the industry could apply to games, and that way they could avoid imperial entanglements, as ben Kenobi would say. To that end, the IDSA created the Entertainment Software Ratings Board or ESRB. This is kind of like a subcommittee. It's a board that evaluates upcoming video game titles and then assigns content and age ratings for those games. That way, the moms and dads out there won't be shocked when their little rugrats bring home a copy of Bayonetta and then they see that there's a woman in a latex body suit wearing eight inch stiletto heels doing splits all over the screen while shooting demons with guns that are strapped to our feet. That's, of course, assuming that the moms and dads out there actually paying attention to the ratings that are on these games, which frequently doesn't happen. But that's not the idsa's vault or the ESA's fault. We're talking these days. Now, What does this have to do with E three. Well. E three actually served a couple of purposes. One of those was to generate money that could pay the expenses of the ESA in general and the ESRB in particular. So about a little it's not quite half and half, but about half of the funding would come from dues that the various companies in the industry were paying to be part of the ESA, and the other half or so would be coming from E three, which would be this big exhibition and companies would pay to be a part of it, and E three would generate a lot of the revenue that would support the ESA throughout the year. However, that was just one reason for E three. The other reason for E three is that back in the mid nineties it was challenging for video game companies to get publicity. You know, there were magazines that covered the video game space, but they had limited reach and limited circulation. You could pay to have a space at CEES, that's the Consumer Electronics Show, but more often than not, video game companies found themselves shuffled off to a remote table, sometimes out in the parking lot under a tent, rather than being part of the convention hall itself. Plus, these companies were competing for attention with every other electronics company out there. That meant they were spending a lot of money to have a presence at an event where they were largely ignored by press and the event staff. There was very little return on investment. In other words, you felt like you were an outsider, even though by the rules you should be just as important as any other attendee at the exhibit. Of course, cees there's a scale for which you will be judged. Then the larger companies are spending way, way, way more money to have a very large presence on the floor itself. But that gets off track. Creating a separate trade show, one that would focus solely on companies in the video game space would give developers and publishers and hardware manufacturers a spotlight both for the media and to end up working with retailers to make sure that their products would be sold in stores. They would still have to compete with each other to get attention from the media and retailers, but it would still be far more focused than a general tech event. Now I have done full episodes about the history of E three, and a full detailed history is a real roller coaster. There were years that were legendarily influential and years where folks made some questionable decisions in an effort to promote a game, or a company or the event itself. And yeah, to go into it in detail would be a little repetitive of things have already done. But we're going to hit some of the highlights. So nineteen ninety five is when the first E three launched, and from ninety five to two thousand and six E three would grow. There were a couple of setbacks, but generally speaking, it grew year over year and became more and more extravagant, and as a consequence, it also became more and more expensive. Companies were shelling out big bucks for elaborate booth spaces. They would staff these booths with lots of really attractive people. This would be the era of the so called booth bases. These would be women who would be hired to wear costumes, often provocative ones, and to promote specific games and franchises. Not the most progressive of approaches, I have to say. Companies would host these huge parties and they would invite industry and media to attend them. And this was really before my time as a tech podcaster. So I never went to E three during this era. I heard about it, and it's probably for the best that I never went, because I am notoriously boring at parties. I am, I guess decent and one on one and small groups, But throw me in a party and it's just the worst. You might as well have just saved the invite for somebody who's more interesting and fun. But anyway, things were getting pretty rowdy over at E three and the attendee list was starting to include more non traditional media types. So early on, the people who were going to E three in the media side, they were journalists from like tech publications as well as larger media outlets. But as E three matured, so too did the web, and this brought a new breed of media, the blogger. Now, some of these bloggers were former journalists and reporters, and they had that background, but a lot of them were, you know, blogs that were run by a person who was hard working. They were enterprising, they were enthusiastic, but they didn't necessarily have that background in journalism or reporting. They were kind of a grassroots effort to build up a brand, and it was working, and more and more of them were attending E three. But that meant that at least among some people, there was this perceived decline in professionalism at E three, and that it was starting to turn more into a party atmosphere and less of a trade show. Worse, some of the companies that were exhibiting were starting to feel like all these ding dang bloggers were getting in the way of interacting with the folks who quote unquote really mattered, like the larger press outlets and retailers. So if you're spending all your time talking to Jimbob of jim Bob's Big Old Games blog, and it means you miss out on your chance to chat with Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. So I'm talking about back in the day. Mosburg doesn't write for the Journal anymore, but when he did, you know you wanted to get some time with him. Well, if it turned out that you were spending all your time talking with these much smaller media personalities, you would end up saying, why are we spending millions of dollars to not talk to the people who matter. The ESA, sensing that things were possibly starting to go south, made a bold decision, which was a decision to be less bold ironically, the E three events in two thousand and seven and two thousand and eight would be scaled back considerably, with the focus reverted to being about the business of video games, so it'd be much more reserved and professional or boring if you prefer, and the attendees list would be restricted accordingly. Suddenly all those bloggers found it impossible to attend, their applications would be denied. While E three had a couple of hiccups before this change in two thousand and seven, I really think it was the two thousand and seven in two thousand and eight years for E three that started to prompt people to predict E three was on the way out there. Like I said, had been a couple of hiccups earlier. There were a couple of times where E three had to move. In fact, it moved to Atlanta, Georgia. I was not in the industry at the time, so I didn't attend, despite the fact that it was just down the street from me. But yeah, it was. It moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and attendance plummeted because a lot of people were located out west and they didn't want to take the journey all the way east to attend E three. So yeah, there were a couple of times before two thousand and seven where things were a little slow, but generally speaking, up to two thousand and seven, E three was just growing and growing and growing, and that meant that when the ESA decided to cut way way back on the excess of E three, it prompted the doom and gloom soothsayers, but it wasn't over just yet. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk more about E three's journey toward cancelation. Okay, before the break, we were talking about how the ESA decided to make E three more professional in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, they cut way back on the event. They spread the event across multiple locations in Los Angeles, they restricted media access to just a couple of outlets, and this, like I said, prompted some people to say it was the beginning of the end for E three, And you could kind of see why. The change meant that the media presence at E three was much much smaller, and that meant consumers weren't really getting a look at upcoming titles the way they had been in just the previous couple of years, so consumers weren't really getting excited. They didn't have anything to be excited about. They didn't have this big event to talk about, and that change would then affect the video game companies as well. So once again, the essay received pressure from multiple parties, from video game companies, from media outlets, from retailers too, to change the event. Again, the argument was that the ESA had overcorrected in an attempt to inject professionalism in E three. Soh the ESA started easing back into more of what E three was like before two thousand and seven, and this would start in two thousand and nine. The organization tried to manage the events growth. They capped attendance. They didn't want A three to just explode to a point where it was an unmanageable, chaotic mess. But they also didn't want it to feel so buttoned down and restrictive, so they started to allow some bloggers and podcasters to attend as media. That's how I would end up going back in the day. In fact, I think my first E three was two thousand and nine, although I could be wrong about that. I'm really terrible at remembering specific dates of things. That I've gone to, but it was definitely after the two thousand and seven two thousand and eight scaling back session. But the general public still would not be part of the E three experience, not yet. However, during the time, web technology was reaching a point where, at least for some companies, there began to be a new question, which was does it even matter if we attend E three? Does our participation mean anything now? For smaller companies the answer was clearly yes. The independent developers out there did not have the massive presence or platform from which they could communicate directly to the public. They didn't have that kind of space. But for some of the really big companies out there in the video game space, like EA aka Electronic Arts, there was no reason to adhere to the schedule of E three. You could just hold your own event, and you could do so on your own terms. You could dictate the schedule, you could end up making sure you're not competing with anyone else who's in your space, and so they opted to do that. They pulled out of E three. Now you could see how this could have a huge, huge benefit to a company like EA if your publicity plans HINGE on E three. Well, then you have to get your projects into some sort of presentable format by the time that event rolls around, and you have no say in the timing of that event. Right they've organized it, you know what the deadline is. You can't move it, so you have to work according to their schedule. That might mean putting together a demo that ends up not even being a good representation of the end product. You know, there's been that in a lot of cases where people have presented cinematics representing a game and it turns out the actual game looks drastically different when it's in playable form. But that's kind of the stuff that would happen when you don't have the power to control the event itself. Plus you're still competing with all the other companies in the industry at E three, so you might be figuratively killing yourself to get a really good demo or presentation together, and you still face the possibility that not very many people are going to see it because they all ended up going to a competitor's keynote presentation instead. But if you hold your own event, you can schedule it in your own time. You can make sure that you're not overlapping with competitors. That guarantees more of the spotlight for yourself, and these days video games are much more high profile. So back in the nineties you might have had to tempt some random reporter into your booth just to get them to consider covering your project. But by the late two thousands, video games have become an undeniably huge business and there was no shortage of coverage from mainstream media as well as smaller independent outlets. In fact, these days, you can put out a pre taped presentation on YouTube and then you can just count on numerous YouTubers to do reaction videos to your present and that spreads your marketing message further, and all without you having to even pay for it. It's a totally different world now. I cannot point to a single year and say this is when it became clear that E three's importance as far as promoting games had faded away, with one possible exception, but we'll get there, because it was really more of a gradual decline. It didn't happen at the same speed for every company I did mention. Electronic Arts pulled out fairly early, but it wouldn't be the only company others would follow suit. You had Nintendo that would withdraw from E three and just hold its own Nintendo Direct event. You would have Activisions step away. Then more recently, Sony would step away from E three entirely to hold its own event. Other video game publishers did the same. Some of them became known for their own in person events, like Blizzard held BlizzCon, and that was a very well known event still is a very well known event. So you could say that the video game industry had largely outgrown the need for E three, at least from the promotional standpoint right. And on the retail side, things had changed dramatically as well. So back in the nineties you really needed to form those strong relationships with retailers. You needed to make sure that your games were being carried and best Buy and in various retail establishments in malls whose names I totally forget now because it's been so long since those even existed. But today it's a totally different world. The name of the game now is really digital distribution. Yes, there are still companies making physical media, and you can buy physical copies of games, at least some games, but more often than not, people are buying games through an online store like Steam or Epic, or even just a proprietary store run by the video game publisher. But you're not having to go through a retailer anymore, and that has changed dramatically so that part of E three is no longer as relevant. However, we're not yet done with E three, so in twenty sixteen, the ESA decided to dip its toe into the thought of opening up E three to the public. Now, it didn't really go whole hog. In fact, it kept E three insulated from the public, but instead they set up a smaller space where the general public could go. They kept a tight cap on attendance, but it was free to go, and the ESA didn't really have experience in creating public facing events that you might find at something like PACKS. Packs from the very beginning was considered as a public facing event. Originally PACK stood for Penny Arcade Expo, and it was into to be a gaming oriented event, whether that would be video games or tabletop games, all sorts of games. That was the whole intent of PACKS, and it grew and grew and grew to the point where it rivaled and in some cases got larger than E three and it was run in a very different way. Well, the ESA didn't have that experience, and a lot of attendees found that despite the fact that the ESA was capping attendance, it still was a very crowded space. It was hard to get any appreciable time on popular titles, and you know, it just wasn't fun. You were standing in line for a lot of the time. You might get to play a game for about five or ten minutes, and then you had to go and stand in another line. By the way, it was not that much different for media back in the day. If you were important enough media, then you could essentially get a skip to the head of the line pass. But otherwise you'd be waiting in that line with everybody else, trying to get some time on a title so you could form some impressions on it. It was not the most efficient or fun experience. I mean, it could always be exciting to get a chance to play something that was you know, not even released yet, but beyond that that, that initial little burst of dopamine was not enough to keep you going as you're waiting for you know, hour number two to try the new God of wargame for five minutes Meanwhile, the industry and media attendees were looking at the general public the way everyone else had been looking at bloggers back in two thousand and six, you know, kind of with that snobby look that people get. And I'll admit it, I was one of those snobby people. But I wasn't so much saying like, oh, the commoners have arrived. Instead, I was just finding it harder and harder to cover E three professionally because more folks were showing up and crowding up the space. That crowding really began in twenty seventeen, because that's when the ESA did start selling tickets to the general public. They had a limited number, I think it was like fifteen thousand that first year, but they were selling those tickets and that gave them access to the actual show floor. It was no longer a separate space. If it had been a separate space, then it wouldn't have had a big impact on the experience inside the show itself. But you had the general public mingling with industry and media and it just made it harder to get around and harder to get access to anything. So now, on one hand, you could see the ESA's dilemma, right because companies were starting to bow out of E three, and the ESA had depended in part on those companies paying to be part of the E three event and to drive attendance to E three. So money was effectively leaving E three because these big companies were starting to pull out and hold their own events. So the ESA had to come up with a new strategy, which might be one reason they chose to sell tickets. Those tickets weren't cheap, by the way. In twenty seventeen they went for two hundred and fifty bucks a pop, though I think the Early Bird Special dropped that down to a cheap one hundred and fifty right, still princely sum if you ask me one hundred and fifty bucks so that you can stand in line for ninety five percent of the time and the other five percent of the time you're actually playing games. That's a steep price, if you ask me now. The ESA would repeat this strategy in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, and E three grew in size, but each year there were more articles and think pieces about whether or not E three was even relevant for the video game industry anymore. More and more companies were pulling out, and there were more and more complaints about the event being crowded with people who were part of the general public and not actually part of the industry or the media. Some people thought that perhaps E three would transition from an industry event to a pure public facing one that rather than being geared toward pairing publishers with retailers, which really again was not a consideration anymore in the era of digital delivery, and from being a media event, which it kind of still was, but it was a very different kind of experience at this point, and then changed to be something where people can come in and get a chance to play some games that are in development and have one on one face time with people who are in the industry or whatever, but it specifically being for that purpose, so it would be a completely retooled approach at that point, but they hadn't done that yet, and meanwhile, the ESA had some crises on its hands. So one was when the agent, the ESA's president second president ever, Mike Gallagher, left the organization, so he had led the ESA since two thousand and seven. He took over for Doug Lowenstein, who had been the founder of ESA and the first president of the organization. So Gallagher saw E three go from trying to be all business to pivoting back to a slightly scaled down but still rather extravagant version of the Crazy Days. He also led the organization as E three offered tickets to the public. But then the curtain got pulled back a little bit and things started to look really awful behind the scenes. So Gallagher would step down from his position toward the end of twenty eighteen, and in the process it got a lot of attention from the media. There were allegations that Gallagher had fostered a toxic work environment at the ESA, and that he was pitting employees against one another to curry favor with the boss. And his thought was that by making people work against each other and come against each other, you would get the best work, right, But in the process you're destroying your staff. And it did sound like a lot of the accounts, which weren't from Gallagher himself, they were from you know, mostly anonymous sources. We're saying that Gallagher, or at least implying that Gallagher was on sort of a power trip, that it was this kind of sadistic glee of making people, you know, undercut one another in order to get ahead. There's a piece of variety about this that makes it sound like working at the ESA during this time would be a bit like if you were leading one of the minor houses in Game of Thrones. You're really just trying to hold things together in your team without getting the attention of one of the more power hungry houses out there, and winter is coming. There were also accusations that Gallagher was showing favoritism toward a particular employee. I couldn't find a lot of details about this, but it did sound like one person was being held out for special favor while everyone else was suffering, and that made things worse. So apparently Gallagher left the ESA after the board for the ESA decided to hold some one on one interviews with various staff members to investigate some of the complaints that were rising up through the organization. So Gallagher tindered his resignation. I don't know if he was asked to resign, but if he wasn't, I'm sure that was just a matter of time because from what I understand, it was untenable for him to maintain his position. The board was just not going to allow it. Now I've never met Gallagher. I haven't taught to anyone who did work for Gallagher. At least if I have, we didn't talk about this, so I don't have first or secondhand information about this, but from everything I've read, it does sound like it was miserable to work under his direction. His departure, however, meant that the ESA suddenly was without a leader or a coherent vision of where to move forward. And apparently about half of the leadership in the ESA either quit or was fired in the six months following Gallagher's departure, which is a big ol' yikes. Now we're going to take another break. When we come back. E three still isn't dead even yet at this point in our story. We will talk more about what happened after these messages. Okay, we're back. So, while the Gallagher fallout was going on at the ESA, there still needed to be an E three in twenty nineteen, but that event would have its own crisis, this time in the form of a data leak. So it was discovered that the EAA had accidentally linked a database containing attendee information through the ESA website itself. In other words, it was possible to access this database of attendee info, which held like two thousand entries of personal information, including things like addresses and phone numbers and email of all these different attendees. So anyone who was able to go to ESA's website could potentially find themselves accessing a database with all this private information. And we're talking about some high profile folks who are on that list, like prominent social media influencers and really important games journalists. And you also have to remember this is twenty nineteen, so just a few years earlier, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, there was gamer Gate, a truly terrible, terrible period of harassment and abuse that was done in the name of calling out for better video games journalism, but that was really more of a smoke screen and was mostly about intimidating people you didn't like and harassing them in terrible ways. So in the wake of that, the fact that that had just happened a few years earlier, and in the very industry that you are you are in as an influencer or video game journalist, obviously finding out that your private information was publicly accessible is not going to fly well for you. You're going to have some opinions about the organization that allowed that to happen. Now, the ESA did remove access to the data. Actually I had to do it twice because it turned out there was another way to access even more information. But obviously the damage had been done. You know, information had already leaked out. A lot of people in that space reported that they were on the receiving end of harassing phone calls and things of that nature. And worse, So, now media and influencer were being wary of E three. They got burned by the ESA. So you had these big companies that were all pulling out of E three in favor of holding their own separate events or joining together on an alternative event like Summer Game Fest. And then you had the media second guessing their involvement because you know, getting docsed sucks. And then twenty twenty happened, and y'all all remember that, right, I mean, the pandemic hit and then beginning with south By Southwest and then stretching throughout the year, we saw in person conferences cancel one after another, including E three. So this situation really drove home to video game companies that having your own event, even if it's just digital and a virtual event it's not held in person. It is important if you want to make announcements, and depending upon a third party is always risky because you could find yourself without a platform through no fault of your own. This is also why you know I always tell content creators that it's good to diversify where your content goes, because if you count on just one place where your content lives, if something happens to that place, if you don't control that place and they make a change, you end up suffering from that. We see it a time and again on YouTube. Whenever YouTube changes their monetization policies, Like every time that happens, lots of people end up suffering consequences. And one way to try to mitigate that is to make sure you're not putting all your eggs in one basket. Now, the pandemic forced companies to come up with their own strategies, and that would mean there'd be even less of a reason to depend upon E three itself. Twenty twenty was actually when we did get the first Summer Game Fest, when Jeff Keeley put that together, because there was this void since E three wasn't happening. Plus at the same time we were seeing tons of concer solid in the video game space. Companies were gobbling one another up, with Microsoft rushing bullishly forward and leading the pack. And of course we're still waiting to find out what's going to happen with Microsoft's planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard. But that's a great example of there were actually fewer big parties involved because there was all this consolidation, and it meant that there were fewer companies that needed to rely on an event, and an event like E three because they were part of a bigger organization that could hold its own event. Now, don't get me wrong, there are still smaller video game companies. They still do exist, and they would still benefit from being elevated on a larger platform. But a lot of the mid sized companies found themselves absorbed by the larger ones and the playing field became more sparse. So there was no E three in twenty twenty at all, either in person or digital. The ESA scrambled to figure out a contingency plan for twenty twenty one, and what came up with was a digital only presentation, so there would be no in person gathering for twenty twenty one, And they also said E three that year stood for Electronic Entertainment Experience rather than EXPO, because it's not much of an expo if it just involves watching a pre recorded digital presentation. The ESA hoped to bring E three back in person for twenty twenty two, but COVID still presented a considerable challenge. The ESA made the call in early twenty twenty two to cancel the in person event, but they said, quote due to the ongoing health risks surrounding COVID nineteen and its potential impact on the safety of exhibitors and attendees, E three will not be held in person in twenty twenty two end quote. But they stressed that this was not the end of E three itself, and that quote, we remain incredibly excited about the future of E three and look forward to announcing more details soon end quote. This is where I would insert Ron Howard's narrator voice from Arrested Development, and I would have him say they would not announce more details soon now. In early twenty twenty two, there was still hope that the ESA would try to do something like it had the year before with a digital only experience, but by late March twenty twenty two, the ESA made it clear that there would be no event at all, digital or otherwise Will Powers, a PR rep for the company, Razor broke this news on Twitter and revealed that he had received an email that confirmed E three had been totally canceled for twenty twenty two. The ESA later released a statement that said quote, we will devote all our energy and resources to delivering a revitalized physical and digital E three experience next summer. Whether enjoyed from the show floor or your favorite devices, the twenty twenty three showcase will bring the community, media and industry back together in an all new format and interactive experience. We look forward to presenting E three to fans around the world live from Los Angeles in twenty twenty three. End quote. I need another Ron Howard bit for this too. He should say something like they did not do that, or you know something that's funnier than that. Anyway. Yeah, the messaging in twenty twenty one was that there would be an in person event again in twenty twenty two. Then the ESA had to reverse course on that. They said their concern was for COVID. Now, I think that's a legitimate thing to be concerned about. However, I also don't think that's the real reason they canceled in twenty twenty two. I suspect the real reason was that the ESA was finding it challenging to secure exhibitors for the event, either in reality or virtually, that more and more companies were like, no, I think we're good, and that it just got to a point where there was so few big names on the list that there was no way to hold an event. There were not enough attractions to hold an event, and that's why it got canceled. That's what I believe. But you also still had ESA saying stay tuned, we have more to say, and then they went radio silent for months. Then when they did speak, they said, okay, well, now there's no event at all in twenty twenty two, but twenty twenty three is going to be bigger and better than ever. And then this past March we got confirmation that there would be no E three this year either, which I think a lot of people already suspected, but then it was confirmed by the end of March this year. So what happened, Well, I think the major reason for E three's cancelation is a lack of participation among big video game companies too. Many have forged their own strategies, or they've signed on with Jeff Keeley and the Summer Game Festival to promote upcoming video game titles. They've outgrown the usefulness of E three. It represents too small of a return on investment. Many companies declined the invitation to participate in E three. A lot of them agreed to initially and then chose to pull out, And that lack of commitment, I think meant that E three could not be anything other than a disaster. So rather then throw an event that would be held up to ridicule and disappointment, the ESA chose to cancel it outright, and I think that's probably the better move of the two. It's better to go ahead and cancel it completely than to say, here are the three video game companies that you've never heard of and games that you may or may not be interested in, and then that's all we have to show you. But does that mean E three is gone for good? I I'm not entirely sure. I think the old format of E three is dead. I don't think it's coming back. I don't think it can. I don't think there's a purpose for it, and if there's no purpose for it, then no one's going to pay for it. So the ESA tried to hype up twenty twenty two before canceling, and then punted the ball down the field to hype up twenty twenty three before canceling. But they've learned their lesson. They are not hyping up twenty twenty four, so at least there's that right. The ESA no longer seems to be actively denying reality, so instead Stanley Pierre Luis, who is the president of the ESA now told Games Industry Dot biz quote, We're committed to providing an industry platform for marketing and convening, but we want to make sure we find that right balance that meets the needs of the industry. We're certainly going to be listening and ensuring whatever we want to offer meets those needs, and at that time we will have more news to share. End quote. That is way more reserved than what we have heard the last couple of years, and it could indicate that the ESA is grappling with how to either pull the plug on E three in a way that isn't disastrous, or to reinvent the expo entirely to become something new. I personally think it would be possible to make a public facing event and to have it be a satisfying experience. I mean, PAX has been doing that for ages and has had attendance that was at least as big as E three's most popular years. It's just that it has to be run in a way that is fundamentally different from a trade show. I think that's where a big part of the problem was for the last few E threes, because slapping on a public aspect to what had been an industry trade show is kind of like putting ice hockey players in full gear on a beach volleyball court and telling them to play. It's just not set up correctly. I think the pandemic proved to video game companies what they already suspected that they could survive or even thrive without depending on E three at all. Gone are the days when video game coverage was limited to magazines like Nintendo Power, and you had to set yourself on fire if you wanted to be noticed. The Internet makes it possible to reach a global audience without competitors stealing your thunder. It's kind of ridiculous to say, hey, why aren't you spending millions of dollars to participate in this event that you don't really need Because that question contains the answer inside it. That does raise the question of how the ESA will move forward. It still provides important services when it comes to the ESRB and also to representing the industry as a whole so that politicians don't, you know, blame video games for the proliferation of violence rather than say how easy it is to buy firearms and ammunition in this kind. The ESA does draw money from dues, but E three had been a major source of funding in the past, so it will be interesting to see where the ESA goes from here. As for E three, I'm not gonna say that it'll never be back, but again, I don't think it'll be back in the way that we're used to. If it comes back, it will be drastically different from what it had been in the past, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it's a necessary thing. Maybe some people will be sad that they missed out on the debauchery that led up to the big change in two thousand and seven, I'm personally not because y'all, I mean, that's just not me. Some For some of y'all party animals out there, I get it, But for boring folks like me, I just want to be able to see cool games and find out more about them. I don't need crazy parties and stuff. But yeah, I think if there are any more future E three's, they will be very different from what we've seen in the past, and I would not be entirely surprised if E three just fades away. It also wouldn't surprise me if the essay never really formally pulls the plug and just allows it to kind of hang in the air as a possibility, because you never want to close the door if you don't have to, and I think that's entirely possible. We could go five six years with no E three and still not have a formal statement saying, yeah, that era is over, so we'll just have to wait and see. I hope all of you are well. If you are interested in games, you should look up some of the stuff that was announced on Summer Game Fest some of the streams that have come out. There were a lot of interesting announcements and unveilings. I'm curious to know if any games in particular caught your attention, or if you maybe we're left feeling cold. That's possible too. I know there have been years where I've seen all the game announcements and thought, you know, none of these are for me, which is not saying that the games are bad, just that the games are for people who have different skills and different interests than I do. I guess not everything could be Stardo Valley. That's right. I'm a hardcore gamer, y'all. All right, that's it. I hope you are all well, and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,

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