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On Thu, 30 Mar 2023 23:46:40 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Wow. Such terseness. I'm impressed. It's a talent I'll never be able
to emulate.

I've no real opinion on the death of E3. I've never been a fan of
conventions to begin with, and the scale of E3 never made it an
attractive destination to me. So it wasn't like I was ever intending
to go there. But I know some people loved that sort of thing, and
change is always unnerving. So overall, I'm ambivalent.

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On Thursday, March 30, 2023 at 4:46:51 PM UTC-7, Ant wrote:


Oh noes! Where will the media get their AAA not yet released
and overpromised and hyped game footage?!

Could there be some other convention that will pick up the
hype?

I don't know and don't care, I never paid attention to such
things.

- Justisaur

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Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

Could there be some other convention that will pick up the
hype?

The game console manufacturers and big publishers are having their
own events now. So for AAA games, nothing much has changed, but I
think this may make it more difficult for second-tier games without big publishers to grab some attention. E3 was a relic of the past though,
so even for games like those it may not make much difference, but there
will probably be at least a game or two that would have caught the eye
of a reporter that will now go unmentioned on the video game websites.

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/
db //

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On Sat, 1 Apr 2023 18:50:45 -0000 (UTC), rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
(Ross Ridge) wrote:

Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

Could there be some other convention that will pick up the
hype?

The game console manufacturers and big publishers are having their
own events now. So for AAA games, nothing much has changed, but I
think this may make it more difficult for second-tier games without big >publishers to grab some attention. E3 was a relic of the past though,
so even for games like those it may not make much difference, but there
will probably be at least a game or two that would have caught the eye
of a reporter that will now go unmentioned on the video game websites.

More, E3 was necessary because the publishing arm of the game-industry
- trade magazines and later game websites - were a necessary part of
getting word about new titles out to gamers. They were the ones who
pushed the hype, and the easiest way to hype up the journalists was to
get them all in one spot and then fete them for a day or three in a
massive over-the-top convention.

But nowadays, between digital marketplaces and Twitch/YouTube
streamers, game publishers have a much more direct connection to their customers. You simply don't need a convention when you have ten or
twenty YouTubers pushing your message on a daily basis for months on
end. This also feels more intimate and 'real' to your audience then
any marketing pushed through a magazine or website, and thus is far
more effective. Conventions can't match that; even if not filtered
through a third-party (e.g., if the gmaer goes to the convention
themselves) they are too infrequent and too obviously marketing
blitzes to have the same effect.

Still, a part of me will miss conventions, if only because their
schedules forced developers to time their announcements to specific
points on the calendar, rather than the endless dribble of information
we get now. The current methodology means games can be released
piecemeal, staying in beta 'early release' for years rather than us
getting a final product. Of course, the other way had problems too -
crunch time, rushed-to-market releases, etc. - but there was a certain attractiveness to the scheduled hype.

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The concept of a convention like E3 just doesn't fit into video game marketing dynamics anymore. As others have said simply sponsoring a Twitch streamer that has 4k viewers for two hours is enough to plant a seed for any small independent publisher.

I sort of lost track of paying attention to E3 in the very early 00s when it turned into sort of a boozy wanna-be rock concert and despite how obviously corny it was, the magazine nerds ate it all up. To be less frivolous, that was also around the time
when the big 'showstopper' games would routinely disappoint year in and year out but still get to hog all the megaphones and magazine covers (think Daikatana and all of Romero's stunts)

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