E3 2007: This is Progress?
This week marks the debut of the “new and improved” E3. If you missed all of the controversy last year, in short some of the larger game publishers announced after last year’s show that they would no longer support E3. According to them, the problem was that the show had become too loud, too big, and too expensive for them to effectively connect to the media and retail buyers and get their new products noticed. (Do I need to mention that it’s pretty much those companies’ fault that E3 got so loud and big in the first place?) So the E3 sponsors completely revamped the format, significantly cutting the number of invited attendees, moving it from the LA Convention Center to a collection of Santa Monica hotels, and moving it from May until July. (I would like to know who was responsible for the brilliant idea of scheduling a major trade event the week after a major holiday weekend, by the way.)
As I ready myself to hit Santa Monica this week I can’t help but think that E3 has gone from a loud, manageable mess to quite simply a complete mess. This year E3 will take over the Barker Hangar at Santa Monica airport to use as a space for companies to showcase their games in a low-key, user-friendly environment. Not a bad idea at face value, but in reality it makes things a lot more difficult. First of all the game publishers are not showing all of their games at Barker Hangar. To get a look at all of the upcoming games attendees will need to schedule appointments at the publishers’ hotel suites which are spread among six or so hotels in Santa Monica. What’s the point of having a shared space to preview games when the companies won’t be showing all of their games there? Making matters worse, Barker Hangar is on the other side of Santa Monica from the hotels being used to host game demos. This may not sound like a big deal to you if you’re unfamiliar with LA traffic, but by early afternoon attendees will have to brave one of the heaviest traffic corridors in LA to reach the Barker Hangar. The E3 show is providing shuttles between the hotels and Barker Hangar, but those shuttles will have to sit in the same traffic as everyone else. Making matters worse is the fact that the hangar is not open during the full show hours, forcing attendees to try and squeeze in a few hours in the afternoon or evening in which they must make a whirlwind tour of this “casual” gaming environment - and they have to try and get over there at the height of the traffic crush.
Scheduling appoinments this year to see the publishers’ suites has been a nightmare. First of all, all of the show’s press conferences except for Microsoft’s are scheduled during show hours on the first day of the show. In prior years the conferences were scheduled the day before the show itself opened, leaving you free to see the show once it started. This year, a year in which you pretty much need to schedule an appointment with every single game publisher, the press will miss out on almost an entire day of the show and will need to cram all of their appointments into a two day period. In previous years you needed at most about five to ten minutes to make it between appointments since everything was in one place. This year you’re required to waste half hour chunks of time in your schedule just so that you can get between hotels. There’s no room whatsover in the schedule to let anything slip or to spend a little extra time with a game that looks like it stands out from the crowd.
I’ll let you know what the new format show is like as it plays out this week. However, I have to say that I’m not looking forward to it in the same way that I have E3 shows in the past. I can tell by my schedule already that I will see fewer games at this E3 than ever before, and will spend half of the time worrying about logistics when I should be thinking about games. This new show format was supposed to make it easier for companies to get their games in front of the press and to help give writers more time to learn about the games in a more relaxed atmosphere. This year’s show’s format couldn’t be any further off target.
July 13th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Now that I’m in the middle of E3 I can tell you that it’s every bit the logistical nightmare that I suspected it would be. In previous years I had seen almost everything going into the last day of the show and used the last day to get second looks at the interesting games and to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything. This year I’ll spend the whole last day running around Santa Monica in a mad dash to try and get more first looks at games before the show closes. I’ve long since given up all hope of seeing everything at the show this year. E3 has managed to shrink the show size while simulataneously making it harder to see as high a percentage of the games on display as in prior years. I estimate that I spent over two hours on shuttles yesterday, which is over 20% of the time during which the show is open. The shuttle ride to the Barker Hangar can take up to a half hour on its own - one way. Press riding on the shuttles compare the number of appoinments they’ve missed instead of sharing observations on the games on display. Making matters worse is that it can even be difficult to find a company’s demo room once you reach the right hotel. A sign in the lobby will let you know which companies are in the hotel, but it doesn’t always list the room and you never see any information on how to find the room. It took me fifteen minutes at one hotel to find someone who knew that the company was in an unmarked hotel room on an upper floor.
Game companies wanted to spend less money to get their messages and games out to the press, but they probably got a lot more bang for their buck last year. I hope that this failed experiment ends this year and that E3 is re-re-imagined for the 2008 show.