E3: Possible Replacements August 13, 2006 John JCal Callaham

Overview

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Reactions have been somewhat mixed. Some feel the new E3 and its new date of July rather than May will help publishers show off upcoming games to retailers and the press in a more complete state rather than rushing to do a playable demo in May. Others feel the new E3 show will not garner the massive mainstream media attention that has been given to the video and PC game industry at previous expos.

While there are still questions about how the new E3 will finally shape up (our repeated requests for interviews about the subject with the ESA have been denied with a spokesperson telling FiringSquad they are no longer commenting on their E3 plans for the time being) there is no question that there has been a flurry of press releases from other trade shows and consumer conventions in the past two weeks. All of these press releases, along with comments in interviews, are saying that they will be beefing up their own video and PC gaming portions to fill the void that the ESA has given them with the reduced E3.

However, it’s also certain that not all of these events will become as massive and as important to the game’s industry as the old E3 has been. So which one will step into the trade show ring and come out on top? FiringSquad has been checking out the various press releases and comments from publishers in the last few weeks and we have our predictions on which events will become the new E3.

Leipiziq Game Convention (August)

With the demise of the London based ECTS trade show a couple of years ago, the German based Leipiziq Game Convention has become in a short time the biggest video and PC game trade show in Europe. Open to both the press and public, organizers are already predicting attendance that will reach 150,000 for this year’s show. Furthermore, game publishers are bringing new builds of games that were only shown behind closed doors at E3 just a few months ago or not shown at all, including playable demos of Command and Conquer 3, Spore and Valve’s triple threat of Half-Life Episode 2/Team Fortress 2/Portal. Also, Nintendo is expected to announce new info regarding their upcoming Wii console at Leipiziq.

Prediction For New E3: Highly Probable. It’s in August, which means closer to fall for game companies to push their holiday game releases. It also has tons of people attending with lots of media coverage and even a lot of US based journalists are making plans to attend. The biggest handicap Leipiziq has is that we think publishers would also like to show off upcoming products in the US market as well around that time. With the new E3 moving from May to July, next year will be a defining moment for the German convention to see if it can retain all the attention it has garnered in the past few years.

More conventions

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Who would have thought that an event organized by the team behind a web comic strip would suddenly become a contender for the next E3? The third annual gathering of gamers this August is going to be the biggest yet in Bellvue, Washington with Microsoft, Nintendo, UbiSoft and many more publishers in attendance. Penny Arcade Expo appeals to the truly fanatical gamers with all sorts of activities that the old E3 would never have had (like the Omegathon).

Prediction For New E3: Probable. Penny Arcade Expo is in the Seattle area which means a bunch of game publishers and developers are just a car drive away. 2007 could be an even bigger show (although they would almost certainly have to move out of their already cramped convention center next year). While the Leipiziq convention happens around the same time we could see PAX gaining an edge over it in the years to come, especially if its as well run as it has been in the past.

Tokyo Game Show (September)

Always a huge show, this is the place for Japanese publishers to show off upcoming products. Sony is sure to have a massive PS3 presence at this year’s show on the heals on the PS3 launch and Nintendo used it last year to show off their new controller for the Wii console (then called Revolution). You can bet that there will be a number of new game announcements from Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft at this year’s show and in year’s to come.

Prediction For New E3: Not Probable. The Tokyo Game Show is already a huge event for the press and public to attend so we don’t see it getting any bigger. It’s also almost exclusively geared for the Japanese market which doesn’t make it a hot prospect for US and European game announcements and demos. Nintendo has also refused to actually have a booth at the Tokyo Game Show for some time. While it will remain an important event, we don’t think this show will supplant the old E3.

America’s VideoGame Expo (October)

Now in its second year, this event held at the Valley Forge Convention Center in King of Prussia, PA is appealing to the consumers rather than the press and several days ago it sent out a press release announcing it was trying to bring in more developers and publishers to attend.

Prediction For New E3: Not Probable. When we got the aforementioned press release, we had to go, “Who are these guys?” Last year’s event was mainly geared for mom-and-pop game stores to display their wares. This year their biggest current exhibitor is Ziff Davis with their 1Up.com and magazine properties. We applaud the show for trying to get in on the E3 fallout press but the location, lack of interesting exhibitors and its October date against a much bigger and nearby consumer event will make this a huge E3 replacement dark horse.

Digital Life: (October)

Last year, big gaming web sites IGN and GameSpot each launched consumer gaming oriented trade show events. This year, neither one has announced a follow up. That leaves Digital Life, the consumer electronics/gaming event in New York City organized by Ziff Davis, the company who publishes web sites like ExtremeTech and 1Up.com and magazine like Electronic Gaming Monthly and Computer Gaming World (soon to morph into the official Games for Windows magazine). Now in its third year, the show has become bigger and bigger. Microsoft used it last year as a way to promote the Xbox 360 just weeks before the launch of the console and will return again this year as well. A PC gaming tournament will also be held around the event as well.

Prediction For New E3: Possible. October represents the last time that game publishers and developers will be able to push their products to an awaiting public before the real Christmas buying season begins. With the E3 downsizing, we think Digital Life could become more important and its New York City location will get a lot of mainsteam media attention. Our big worry is that some publishers seem to be ignoring the show for some reason. Neither Sony nor Nintendo will be attending this year which seems odd concerning the launches of the PS3 and Wii this fall.

GenCon SoCal: (2007)

The original GenCon in Indianapolis is being held this very weekend and always gets some upcoming video and PC games to show off to its many attendees (who also come for the trading card, pen-and-paper, and board games at the show). The same organization launched a Southern California version of GenCon which will be held in Anaheim this November. However a couple of days ago show organizers sent out a press release announcing that due to the E3 downsizing they were going to expand the space for video and PC game exhibits. The Indy show will have 47,000 square feet more of exhibit space for 2007. Even more interesting is that the SoCal show for 2007 (which does not yet have a definitive date announced) will be moving into the Los Angeles Convention Center, the same location as the old E3.

Prediction For New E3: Possible. It’s too early to really tell if GenCon’s expansion plans in Indianapolis and its move to LA in 2007 will be enough to attract more attention from video and PC game publishers. A lot will ride on what date the SoCal event will be held. If it’s in November like this year’s Anaheim event it may be too late for publishers to care about coming to show off products that will be out on the streets already.

GDC and more

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The oldest trade show and conference dedicated to game developers rather than publishers, the March event will be held in San Francisco this year, which is close to many game publishers and a hop, skip and jump for most of the game enthusiast press. There have been many announcements made at GDC in the past (the original Xbox was first revealed by Bill Gates himself at a keynote address in 2000) and it’s become a bigger event for publishers to show off upcoming products.

Prediction For New E3: Possible. While it’s a tad too early in the year to show off a lot of playable code for the fall season, the demise of E3 in its May position will certainly get publishers to show off some more games than normal at the show to the press, then go back in hiding until the new E3 in July comes around. GDC is always a good way to get attention to upcoming products and we think the San Francisco location and its already huge impact on the gaming industry could continue but we think that it will still be a smaller affair compared to the E3 of old.

San Diego Comic-Con: (July 2007):

When you have a west coast location, an event that has been going on for decades, a 2006 show that had attendance at north of 100,000 people, and a growing number of video and PC game attendees anyway, you already have one of the largest venues for showing off your products. Sony, Nintendo, THQ, Blizzard, NCSoft, Vivendi Games and more attended this year’s celebration of pop culture and you can bet that the 2007 edition could be even bigger in terms of attendance.

Prediction For New E3: Possible. Comic-Con has a ton of things going for it but there’s one more we didn’t mention; it’s possible that the new E3 could be held just before Comic-Con this year, which means that even with its smaller size game publishers could wait until the new E3 to make announcements. That also means the press won’t have as much incentive to attend Comic-Con to check out new builds of games since they might have seen the same games at the new E3. It all depends on how the new E3 is organized and that’s still a big question mark.

QuakeCon (Summer 2007):

id Software has run the totally free game exhibit-LAN party event in Dallas for several years now. This year the show had a slight hiccup with the location and dates only being announced at the last minute but it still got quite a lot of attention. In an interview at the Next Generation web site, id’s Marty Stratton announced that they will have planned for next year’s QuakeCon far more in advance and even speculated that with E3 scaling down other publishers and developers besides the ones id deals with could be invited to attend.

Prediction For New E3: Not Probable. We think QuakeCon is always a fun event and we hope that they will be able to avoid some of their locations problems for 2007 so that more people can plan ahead of time to attend. At the same time we honestly don’t think that companies like EA, UbiSoft and others would be interested in promoting their products at an event run by a competitor, even if its free for anyone to attend. We look forward to attending QuakeCon in 2007 (maybe we will get to see the new id title at the show) but we think it will remain a niche event with little chance of it becoming the new E3.

Consumer Electronics Show’s Game Event: (Spring 2007?)

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas used to be the place where video and PC game publishers showed off their products before the industry decided to go it alone in 1995 with their own E3 show. With E3 now in the midst of a revamp to a smaller show, we were surprised to get a press release from CES’s organizers the Consumer Electronic Association that announced they were exploring ways to create a new gaming oriented trade show for smaller publishers for spring 2007 on the west coast.

Prediction For New E3: Possible. It’s way too early to predict how a show will do when it hasn’t even been officially announced yet but the fact that the group behind the massive CES show is thinking about entering the ring at the same time period that the old E3 used to be held is very intriguing. Can this show avoid the cost problems that the ESA had for the old E3? Will it garner enough publisher support and attendance to become an important event for retailer and press coverage. There is just too little info at this stage to see if this event will be a viable one.

The New E3 (July 2007):

As we have repeated before, the ESA has decided to scale down their annual E3 trade show to a much smaller event, moving out of the LA Convention Center and moving into one or two large (and so far undecided) hotels for the 2007 show that will now be held in July. With attendance now on an invite only basis, the show will certainly be smaller as publishers are now expected to set up shop in hotel suites to show off upcoming products.

Will the New E3 Get Bigger? Possible. We honestly think that having a trade show for the video and PC game industry is a good one and the ESA’s leadership to scale down the event, at least for this year and maybe for the next few years, makes sense, especially since there will not be any new major hardware launches from the console makers for the next few years either. However, when Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo do get ready to unveil the successors to the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii, we also think both the ESA and the publishers will agree to expand E3 beyond just hotel suites around the year 2010 or even earlier. The reason? Mainstream media coverage. When those launches do happen they will want a big venue and a big event to put attention to it and it’s possible E3 will grow back to more of its old self when that time happens.