As almost everyone knows by now, this year’s E3 convention will be dramatically cut back in scope, size and ironically for the E3 goers, in entertainment value as well.
Gone will be the elaborate (and expensive) booth displays, bands, electronic pyrotechnics, huge multi-screen demos and of course, what all of us were never interested in – the booth babes.
This year’s E3 convention will also be harder to get into than your favorite tight jeans because the list of the number of invites to the event has been dramatically cut back. This was done in an effort to eliminate "non-essential" attendees from roaming the hallowed floors of E3.
This new policy between the vendors and the E3 management may have been the last straw for many of the game publishers. John Inada, vice president of Temco said, "I don’t have money to waste on an experimental project. Previously, we were not treated very nicely by the old E3 management, so we didn’t feel obligated to cooperate this year. I also heard that a lot of the [retail] buyers weren’t coming."
Other factors for game publishers pulling out of E3 were the exorbitant labor costs associated with doing anything at the convention. Want to plug in your computer for a display? Sorry, that will be $150 for a labor guy to do that. Want to cater some food? That will be $2000 for a tray of 50 cold sandwiches from your happy neighborhood union caterer.
All-in-all, E3 has downsized from being the video game convention of the year to a more subdued conference and social connection gathering. Business will probably be more efficient but it won’t be as fun to attend as it used to be.
But one has to ask, if E3 stands for Electronic Entertainment Expo, where did all the entertainment go?
