The New E3 Still a Work in Progress
Posted by Andrew on Friday, July 20th, 2007 at 8:59 pm under E3 2007, Games Industry
Tagged: e3 2008 and e3 locations
If e3 ends up in Las Vegas, what exactly was the point of trying to change anything with that convention?
Apparently, organizers of the Electronics Entertainment Exhibition are still fiddling with the ingredients of this new experimental formula for the 2008 gathering. Jeff Bell, Microsoft’s VP of Marketing, said recently, “I’m not flying the flag for Las Vegas necessarily, but LA’s not a convention town.”
There was concern this year about the necessary exposure between partners and media, and it’s something that is still being worked on. It will be interesting to see where it will end up next year, hopefully somewhere that makes everyone happy.
San Francisco isn’t a bad town, either. In fact, it seems like the Games Developers Conference has been a success with that city, so why shouldn’t e3 do just as well?
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July 20th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
"San Francisco isn’t a bad town, either. In fact, it seems like the Games Developers Conference has been a success with that city, so why shouldn’t e3 do just as well?"
Because despite both conferences pertaining to the video game industry, E3 and the GDC have very different purposes and cater to very different audiences. The GDC is for developers to learn and network. That is its primary function. E3 on the other hand is primarily about game promotion. To put it simply, if you want to learn how to make games, go to GDC. If you want to learn about upcoming games to buy, go to E3.
Given its primarily promotional purpose, E3 should be a big, brash show held in a big, brash city like Vegas. Vegas is perfect for CES and was for Comdex as well (I still miss that show), and E3 would be great there too given its similar purpose. It's time for E3 to get back to its roots, and that means Vegas, baby.