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The New E3

by Michael Cole - August 3, 2006, 8:23 pm EDT

The PGC staff discusses the ESA's recent announcements, as well as Ubisoft's strong support for Wii.

Discuss it in Talkback!


[Mike C.] SO: E3 Downsize? What does it mean for gamers? Developers? Press?


[Mike G.] I am sad that I won't get to experience e3 again


[Zosha] It means only bad things for legitimate enthusiasts who want to break into game journalism


[Stan] It means more news, less booth babes and other fluff


[Steven] It means press can get things done around E3 without dying


[Evan] Developers and press, plus 1, geeky gamers running websites for $5 a month, minus 1


[Mike G.] cause this year was so much fun


[Mike C.] I don't mind the downscaling, but having it spread amongst hotels sounds very dubious. We all

know how "easy" LA is to navigate


[Zosha] puts too much power in the hands of Publishers


[Stan] It's a shame, E3 was the only way I was hoping to meet you guys


[Stan] and I lost my last best chance


[Steven] Yeah, pubs could just give a presentation and say "this is how we want you to cover our games"


[Mike G.] I've been curious though, in all honesty, how many 'invites' do you think PGC will get?


[Mike C.] Oh really Svevan? You think they'll let a small colony of press from one site in next year?

Didn't IGN have like an army of 40?


[Zosha] it's also a threat


[Evan] Well, there is still E3. This "cancelled" business is just the press saying "no more free booze, no more

fire-hula dancers, no more crazy parties." So what?


[Zosha] IF YOU GIVE OUR GAMES A BAD SCORE....


[Zosha] so yeah


[Steven] I still think they'll be free booze


[Mike G.] There will still be big press conferences too. I really don't think the average fan on the internet will

notice the difference


[Steven] More press confrences, in fact


[Steven] from all the third parties


[Mike C.] It will certainly be harder to distribute game time as you see fit. Don't fool yourself: it will

be just as hard or harder to get to the games you want to play, since you may need to DRIVE BETWEEN HOTELS


[Steven] Not really, it'll all be scheduled


[Stan] Well, it was mentioned that E3 would actually be a three day event


[Evan] There won't be as much to play, so IGN won't need 40 people to cover everything. There also won't be as much

fun stuff to do, so everyone from their staff won't want to go anyways


[Mike C.] You wait in lines on the road, instead of on a showroom floor


[Stan] including press conferences


[Steven] So we have time to drive between hotels


[Zosha] i can say that for established places, it will be nice to avoid the unwashed (exhibition only passes) so we

can get more work done :P


[Mike C.] Oh great, so we get 30 minutes with a publsher's games? Great, that'll make it MUCH easier to

cover a larger demo


[Steven] Yeah, I'm worried that we may not get that much time to cover a pub with a lot of games


[Mike G.] Right, I mean, I played Phantom Hourglass for over an hour alone at this years e3. Would that be possible in

this new format?


[Steven] And I wonder how Nintendo will handle things, they always have a ton of games to show off


[Mike C.] No it likely will not. I think it will be more difficult for all press to cover what they want

to cover in depth, unless publishers have "free roaming" secitons in their hotel space


[Steven] That may be part of it, they spew the info in the press release then allow an hour or two for people to

play their games


[Mike C.] I mean, Nintendo could have a "open to all attendees" seciton and then scheduled game time for

press


[Evan] There also won't be as much E3 pressure for the developers: the demos won't have to be as polished or as

amazing since there won't be YouTube videos after the show, nor will Circuit City employees be anywhere near them.


[Mike G.] Hey, I used to be a circuit city employee... =P


[Steven] Getting rid of the people that don't belong there is the best thing, I say


[Evan] I forgive you.


[Zosha] It's much too much in the publisher's favour


[Mike G.] But are they getting rid of a ton of people that do belong there at the same time?


[Zosha] honestly as it is, the integrity of games journalism is only hanging by a thread...


[Stan] do you think we'll all be there again?


[Mike G.] I mean, being completely honest... I was seriously bummed when I heard this news


[Steven] I don't know about all of us


[Mike G.] after the fun I had this year


[Mike G.] i was really looking forward to next year


[Mike C.] Like I said, I don't have a problem with scaling it down. But moving to multiple hotels is

dangerous


[Zosha] someone like us back when we first began might not get thatsame chance as we did


[Steven] We have a big staff, but then again that's helpful to cover a lot of games quickly


[Mike C.] Mark my words, GDC will become even bigger, just because it has a SHOWROOM FLOOR. It already has

become a mini-E3. It's the natural progression


[Evan] That's true, Dragon. Jonny started as $5 a month fan-journalist, and E3 hooked him up with PGC before it was

PGC. That won't happen again.


[Bloodworth] blah


[Mike G.] So, going back to my original question... how many 'invites' do you all think PGC will get?


[Zosha] svevan: E3 2001 proved to Nintendo and everyone else that PGC was a legit site


[Bloodworth] as many as we want


[Bloodworth] we don't really know how it's set up, but if Nintendo is in charge of their own booth, we shouldn't have

to worry


[Mike G.] but 'as many as we want' means 40-50 people to IGN


[Mike G.] they obviously can't have a lot of those


[Bloodworth] and they'll have all the third party stuff we need


[Stan] I like Blodworth's optimism


[Mike C.] I don't know Pale, we dont' know how that stuff is goign to work, and I doubt the ESA has figured

it out yet either


[Steven] I just wonder who the invites come from


[Stan] Bloodworth's, too


[Steven] Will the ESA hand them out?


[Evan] Having multiple conventions in a variety of locales, as proposed by some, is not a bad idea either. Seattle

and NY can have shows, and obviously Germany is getting lovin'


[Steven] If Nintendo wants us there, but EA doesn't, how does that work?


[Bloodworth] geez it's not like they take a poll of every publisher


[Mike C.] LOL how is that any different from any other E3?


[Bloodworth] but I'm guessing from the term "invite" that every publisher will control who they want


[Mike G.] I'm interested in TYP's point about GDC too. There is already a lot of debate over GDC becoming too

corporate. Will this cause more problems?


[Evan] Nah, E3 will be the next E3, but it will be respectable, something our former E3 lacked


[Stan] I like that, media by invitation. That doesn't sound shadey.


[Mike C.] Yeah. But the ESA should wise up and not do this hotel nonsense, unless the hotels are all on

the same block or something


[Mike G.] And also, PAX has been getting a lot of press since this stuff came out too.


[Zosha] GDC is too expensive to get in ;)


[Steven] E3 is still going to be E3 from the publisher's side of things. They go there to show off games to media

and get important business done. GDC is like the E3 for developers, it's a little different


[Bloodworth] yeah, as far as I can tell the only difference we will be in presentation and a healthy lack of people

making out in front of me


[Steven] Both have their place


[Evan] Sorry about that, blood, she was hot


[Mike C.] That's true in theory, but the line has blurred the last year or so of GDC


[Mike G.] haha


[Zosha] it'd be nice to have absolutely no booth babes and the horribly loud music


[Evan] Agreed, Dragona.


[Stan] man


[Bloodworth] the music will likely be reduced, but I wouldn't count out the booth babes entirely (unfortunately)


[Mike C.] Someone mentioned developers wouldn't have to try as hard with demos...I'm not sure that's true.

Press are who they care the most about impressing at E3.


[Stan] the lack of booth babes will hurt IGN Insider


[Bloodworth] can we not talk like we know the inner workings of IGN?


[Zosha] Bloodworth, well I can always hope.


[Mike C.] I would, however, say this will have impact on competition. I know for a fact most

developers/publishers have "spies" to study other companies' games on the showroom floor


[Zosha] I've seen legitimate PR girls get groped and want pictures from guys. THEY WEREN'T BOOTH BABES YOU IDIOTS


[Evan] I watched a guy from Sony Online VIDEOTAPE the entire Zelda Wii demo.


[Stan] classy


[Mike C.] Right, tha'ts fairly common Evan


[Bloodworth] well not just spying, but there are tons of developers that walk around E3


[Aaron] yeah there are even photos of Miyamoto watching X360 demos


[Mike C.] Heck, I saw the creator of Pac-Man doing just that at GDC one year


[Bloodworth] and they may very well be confined to their own areas now


[Mike C.] EVERYONE has to keep an eye on the competition. It's important in general


[Mike C.] Heck, What we're talking about right now could be the REAL reason for the change


[Bloodworth] that could make the parties more popular as there will be limited chances for developers to meet

otherwise


[Stan] It wouldn't make much sense to not have in a centralized location, but what other options are there

outside the convention center if they choose to keep in in LA


[Mike G.] Do you think it could be as bad as handing NDAs out at the door and pubs really trying to limit what gets out

and how?


[Mike C.] This could be the publisher gostapo clamping down in information-sharing


[Steven] The real reason was money and effectiveness of the show


[Mike G.] Are YouTube cam jobs a thing of the past?


[Mike C.] Sure, Pale, some publishers might do that. I mean, if it's behind closed doors only that sort of

thing wasn't all that uncommon at E3


[Mike C.] *prior E3s


[Mike C.] Pale, big press media will still get direct feed, most likely


[Aaron] I think only a few companies like Square would try something like that overall


[Steven] I would assume that everyone going to the new E3 would be big press


[Mike C.] And (important) exhibitors


[Stan] big press meaning?


[Steven] Yeah, but the change is primarily to get the message out to the media better


[Bloodworth] meaning that if you get into other preview events throughout the year, you will probably get in to e3


[Mike C.] Nintendo likes to show off how great their systems are to third parties, so they could very well

have a public playing area


[Steven] Big press meaning you wear a trench coat and are wearing a hat that has a PRESS flap displayed on it


[Mike C.] Well, any press, I guess, Pryo


[Bloodworth] if you just come to e3 and can't get your act together elsewhere, you probably aren't coming to the "new

E3"

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