New Opportunities Arise in the Wake of E3's Fall

In the wake of E3's downsizing for July 2007, new opportunities are arising for other gaming events. CES, which is the show that E3 separated from, is now setting up an advisory board to look into hosting a new videogame show on the West Coast (possibly Los Angeles?) in the May or June time frame. Because the new E3 has been bumped back to July (and I expect that date to be early July becase Comic Con takes place later that month), the Entertainment Merchant's Association (the new trade organization comprised of the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association and the Video Software Dealers Association) has to move its annual Vegas July event to another month because of the new E3. One option being explored is to partner with CEA to create a bigger entertainment show in Los Angeles that would include videogames, home video and consumer electronics.

One of the main problems with the original E3 was that it took place too early for many game companies to have games that were in decent shape. This resulted in some negative press because the games being shown were in early form. Having a new show in "late spring" would put the game publishers that take part in any type of show in the same predicament.

Right now, it's smaller game companies like Majesco, NcSoft and Auravision that have approached CES about this new show concept. The bigger companies are likely to steal the spotlight in the new E3 format come next July. No company has confirmed participation in the new E3 yet. An Atari spokesperson told me that Atari will not take part in the new E3, and it was not going to take part in the old E3 next year, either. Electronic Arts traditionally has its own editor's day in July, when it flies in journalists from around the globe to its Redwood Shores Studio for a day of gaming. It will be interesting to see what happens to this event, which has always drawn major press coverage targeted specifically at EA products, separate from the crowded conferences of E3s past.

In recent years, Comic Con has become a bigger draw for game companies. With E3 the same month as that show now, it also will be interesting to see how this will impact attendence there. Gen Con is another show that is growing in size. It too, is attracting more game companies. With so many options now for game publishers, and the new smaller-scale E3, it will be challenging to decide whether any of these events still matter as much, and whether it might not be better to host individual events that are targeted to a single publisher's games.

The only thing for sure is that next year will offer a completely different schedule for game makers and game journalists. After the same-old atmosphere of the bloated E3s of years past, everything will be new again next year.