Following reports published last night around the web, the ESA has announced that the widely anticipated annual Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3) will change formats. The new E3 will still be held in Los Angeles, but in a vastly smaller size than previously seen.
ESA President Doug Lowenstein commented in a press release “The world of interactive entertainment has changed since E3Expo was created 12 years ago. At that time we were focused on establishing the industry and securing orders for the holiday season… Over the years, it has become clear that we need a more intimate program, including higher quality, more personal dialogue with the worldwide media, developers, retailers and other key industry audiences.”
Lowenstein continued “E3Expo remains an important event for the industry and we want to keep that sense of excitement and interest, ensuring that the human and financial resources crucial to its success can be deployed productively to create an exciting new format to meet the needs of the industry. The new event ensures that there will be an effective and more efficient way for companies to get information to media, consumers, and others.”
Rumors flew Sunday evening, when news of the E3 shift was leaked to next-gen.biz. When contacted by GamerNode, a PR official for one mega-publisher stated that the change was largely due to “pressures” by large software publishers, who no longer feel that E3 press coverage is “worth the price of multi-million dollar displays.”
Since its inception in the mid-90’s, E3 has been seen as the largest and perhaps most important gaming festival in the world. Recently, however, events put on in Tokyo and Germany, in addition to smaller events in the US, has eaten away from the importance of a single, giant games show like E3.
GamerNode will continue to monitor the story as it unfolds. Calls to Atari, Activision, Ubisoft, 2K Games, and other publishers for comment were not immediately returned.
UPDATE: Lisa Fields responded on behalf of Activision to state that "We support the ESA,s decision to evolve E3 into a more intimate event."
