Gaming’s biggest tradeshow is set to return to its true colours
If you’ve ever read a video games website or magazine during the summer months chances are you may have heard of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, as it’s more commonly known. Opened in 1995, E3 has become the biggest games-focused tradeshow worldwide. For the majority, this annual event has been held at the gigantic Los Angeles Convention Centre, located on the west coast of the US.
In 2005, today’s current-generation consoles were unveiled before the media to furious industry hype. Multi-million dollar booths, expensive PR stunts and scantily clad models packed the show floor. For all of three days the attention of the mainstream US media – CNN, FOX, NBC – was on the games industry. Fans flocked online to view live coverage of the event to see the future of video games announced before their very eyes. It was a media circus. A spectacle. One great attention-grabbing boon.
And it had become too expensive for many of the companies exhibiting. There were too many gaming fanatics and non-media personal sneaking in. Journalists complained that they didn’t get enough time to see publishers’ products. Publishers complained that spending tons of money on extravagant booths, choreographed stage shows and hiring a pretty face or two was seriously cutting into their bottom line. Following E3 2006, the organisation behind E3, the ESA, decided that it was better for everyone involved if E3 was downsized.
Rebranded the ‘E3 Media & Business Summit’ in 2007, the show rolled into Santa Monica as a shell of its former self. Attendance was less than half of the record 70,000 that showed up in 2005, and the industry’s mood was still tepid when the show returned to the LACC a year later. The show floor that had once been crammed with stage shows, hundred-foot wall screens, banners and fibreglass logos was a ghost town. Much to the frustration of industry insiders, E3 had lost its magic.
In just over a week E3 2009 will be underway at the LACC once again and this time the organisers, exhibitors and press are anticipating a glorious return for the industry’s big hoedown. The doors have been opened a little wider to give the show some much needed public buzz, with attendance limited to 40,000. All of the major platform holders – Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo – are set to hold their press conferences, and new rumours seem to surface everyday as publishers try to keep their showstopping announcements under wraps. The current Swine Flu epidemic seems to have ruffled a few Japanese teams into sitting out this year’s event, but, by all other accounts, this year could put E3 back on the tech-calendar as gaming’s number one tradeshow.
E3 2009 begins June 1, and you can catch live coverage of the event on most major entertainment websites. Let the mayhem begin.
Aaron Lee
[Originally published on Thursday, 21 May 2009]
Tags: e3
