[HN Gopher] E3 Has Been Canceled
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E3 Has Been Canceled
Author : haunter
Score : 84 points
Date : 2023-03-30 21:24 UTC (1 hours ago)
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| prmoustache wrote:
| E3 hasn't be cancelled. It took place a week ago and was won by
| Wout Van Aert in front of Mathieu Van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar
|
| Oh wait, that E3? Who cares?
| danbolt wrote:
| For a bit of historical context, E3 was originally made as a
| trade show for visibility in the games industry. [1]
|
| Today, the video games industry has much different means of
| marketing and communications than we did in 1995. Perhaps YouTube
| streaming is the new E3?
|
| [1]
| https://archive.org/details/GamePro_Issue_056_March_1994/pag...
| aceazzameen wrote:
| Is E3 also too expensive? GDC and PAX seem to be doing better.
| I'm guessing they're cheaper and have a better ROI, but I
| really don't know.
| lprd wrote:
| Personally, I think that AAA studios are due for a reality check.
| There's been _some_ decent releases from these studios in the
| past decade, but they are few and far between. I can't help but
| feel that these studios are very disconnected with their audience
| and have ultimately prioritized profits over passion. I know the
| bills need to be paid, but somewhere along the line it become
| more and more noticeable. The market consolidation that's
| happened (EA and Activision come to mind) has done nothing but
| hurt the industry. I'd like to call it a monopoly but I'm not
| certain if that's correct or not. Either way, the current
| landscape is not great.
|
| I've been gaming since the 90s and I'm generally unhappy with the
| current state of affairs.
|
| Thank god for indie devs!
|
| /end rant
| pdpi wrote:
| Then you have releases like Hi-Fi Rush that come out of
| nowhere, and are almost enraging, because it means _they get
| it_. They know how to make interesting, innovative, oddball
| games. They choose not to.
| epolanski wrote:
| > and have ultimately prioritized profits over passion
|
| Videogaming industry is going through its "Airbnb averaging
| effect" which already killed original movies in favor of
| remakes, reboots, sequels and the same formulas that are known
| sellers.
|
| At the end AAA studios require huge investments they will only
| produce products that will sell and risk very little.
| colonwqbang wrote:
| Fortunately it's still possible to break into the games
| industry as an indie developer. You can be a solo developer and
| make a top selling game, if you're really good. Lucas Pope,
| Toby Fox, etc.
|
| So I don't think we are in any kind of monopoly situation, nor
| are we in danger of ending up there right now.
|
| The people who do buy AAA games, I suppose it's because they
| enjoy that sort of thing? I'm not really one of them.
| robopsychology wrote:
| It's almost a habit to buy the big AAA games for me - I've
| bought every AC since the first one and probably will do even
| if I don't enjoy them now they're open world RPG collection
| simulators. Same with CoD not being as fun as the original MW
| games.
| anyfoo wrote:
| I don't know if I'm still in the target audience (or ever was),
| but for one thing, I can't even begin to describe how much
| "games as a service" games put me off. It's really not
| disgruntlement, but active repulsion, as in I'd actually rather
| want to wash my dishes while listening to a podcast than having
| to play them.
|
| But the amount of people feeling like me might be rounding
| errors in today's landscape, I don't know...
| mikrl wrote:
| The market is certainly different. Microsoft/Zenimax/Bethesda
| owns Doom and Quake.
| C-x_C-f wrote:
| On the one hand I'm happy that gaming is gaining recognition in a
| way that makes it a more sustainable career option; on the other
| hand it's clear that once enough money starts flowing in, more or
| less organic & authentic community endeavors like E3 are going to
| be the first to go, all in favor of siloing (I'd wager big
| players not attending is more of a management decision than
| anything else).
| Kye wrote:
| Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but E3 was always run by and
| for big companies. It's never been an organic or community-led
| effort. The ESA is not a collection of indies or average folk.
| C-x_C-f wrote:
| I didn't mean to say it was a grassroots effort, just that it
| brought people together without too much of an artificial
| facade. Sure, at the bottom it was an advertisement event,
| but it's still fun when everything is in the same place. Now
| it feels like the big companies are at each other's throat
| and there's somewhat less of an ability to just have fun.
| Then again, maybe I just contracted a case of rose-tinted
| glasses.
| ihateyouall123 wrote:
| It wasn't really a public convention. It is only designed
| to bring in people from the industry. This isn't comic-con.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > organic & authentic community endeavors like E3
|
| ??? From my understanding E3 became irrelevant years ago. Most
| indie-video game announcements are coming in at like, PAX
| instead... or other conventions that are more authentic.
|
| E3 was a gaming-news icon, but it just hasn't kept up with the
| times. It has no niche and was pulled apart by more specialized
| conventions. Organic authenticity is better from smaller
| conventions... while corporate news would rather be Nintendo
| Direct or other such Youtube/Direct media and marketing.
| livelielife wrote:
| can we say it died after a severe case of Covid19?
| mkl95 wrote:
| It started dying in the early 2010s / late 2000s. Kids stopped
| buying fat monthly magazines to learn about new games and
| started consuming all that information online, for free.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| I think E3 was already kind of an hollowed out husk in the
| years before, for instance Sony already skipped and did their
| own thing in 2019: https://gamerant.com/sony-skip-e3-2019-why/
|
| This article also reads like the writing was already on the
| wall: https://www.indiewire.com/2020/06/e3-uncertain-future-
| gaming...
|
| Covid at most accelerated its death by a year or two.
| MBCook wrote:
| All it really did was officially prove nothing bad happened
| when E3 wasn't held. Which almost everyone seemed to have
| already suspected.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| died from a lack of feminine energy, since different people got
| them to neuter it. and look at that, nobody's interested.
|
| should have taken a page out of the promoter and hospitality
| economy, kept it sexy and ignored people uncomfortable with
| that. because in hindsight, that was inclusion _too_.
| shlubbert wrote:
| What?
| romusha wrote:
| The age of that "wonder" feeling when you see a new game has
| ended. Most people already know what's going to be showns in E3,
| mostly things they don't care about
| OJFord wrote:
| Has it? Or has it just ended for you? I don't really game at
| all any more, I just mean maybe teenagers are just as hyped as
| we were then; the age hasn't passed, but we've aged.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That still doesn't change the fact that the release news has
| changed drastically. Sure, teenagers today probably like to
| game more than yesteryear's teenagers that are all middleaged
| boomers now. News at 11! The point isn't a lack of nostalgia,
| it's that there's no mystery to reveal at a big show. Studios
| release teasers, arrange for "leaks", or any other ways of
| keeping they hype machine rolling.
| OJFord wrote:
| But is that new, or do we become wise to it with age?
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Am I wrong, am I out of touch? I can't remember the last time a
| big banger came out. I look at the Steam top played list and it's
| the same stuff from like a decade or two ago.
|
| Yuck.
|
| The constant push for games to be living breathing things shoving
| microtransactions in my face instead of just being a purchased
| product doesn't help. The community should be living and
| breathing, not the changelogs that obnoxiously pop up when I'm
| trying to play a game.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Cyberpunk was the last banger for me. But I'm excited for
| Diablo 4 and Baldurs Gate 3 this year. Elden Ring was huge and
| the new Zelda is gonna be big.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Gaming has just become so popular that the top played games are
| a rather predictable "average" of the different tastes of a
| vast variety of gamers. But the average is always also quite
| boring (unless you're young and haven't seen this stuff yet a
| thousand times).
|
| You need to look into the niches and at the "genre edges" to
| find the interesting stuff. Especially Steam is full of really
| great "niche games". Just don't look at the top 10, you
| actively have to find the good stuff.
|
| Same with music btw.
| web3-is-a-scam wrote:
| Elden Ring was a _huge_ banger for me, probably the best game I
| 've played in at least a decade and it absorbed my life for
| MONTHS.
|
| And it certainly doesn't have any of the stuff you're
| complaining about.
| epolanski wrote:
| Elden Ring is one of the few AAAs that can be considered a
| banger by all metrics, but it too comes from a decade-old
| formula at this point.
| pawelduda wrote:
| Totally opposite for me. Getting a PS5 alone gave me access to
| such a large backlog of great games. I don't think any of them
| had microtransactions, at least I never purchased anything else
| than the game itself. I'm mostly thinking PS (ex)-exclusives,
| you can enjoy many of them on PC as well nowadays.
| haunter wrote:
| Feels like when Apple stopped going to the Macworld Expos then
| they just shut down
| musicale wrote:
| Nintendo and Square Enix still seem to be interested in in-
| person events, but I wonder about Microsoft and Sony as well as
| AAA developers in general.
| NovaDudely wrote:
| Oh yeah, they tried to continue without Apple but most of those
| claiming they would be fine had that thousand mile stare . They
| knew it was done, just didn't want to admit it that quickly.
| paxys wrote:
| Over the last couple of decades the video gaming industry has
| consolidated into Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and a long tail of
| indie developers. The big players all have their own events, so
| there's really no one left to pay conferences like E3 big bucks
| for publicity.
| allenu wrote:
| Is this part of a trend? Companies are realizing it's cheaper and
| more effective to just announce things online. WWDC 2023 is once
| again streaming only. I imagine that is much easier for them to
| put on as you can just record and edit the talks in advance.
| Still, it's a shame if we have fewer of these big events. For
| those who've attended anything like them, it's quite fun to see
| things in person and socialize.
| javchz wrote:
| I think the E3 made a lot of sense in the time when most game
| news were trough magazines... but now, official channels from
| developers and console makers have an enormous reach so they
| don't have pressure to follow an external calendar.
|
| But yeah, I will miss the E3, was like Christmas eve to get
| hyped up about future releases. I hope hardware focused expos
| like CES or computex survive these trend shift
| MBCook wrote:
| Agreed. It was dying before Covid.
|
| Why should a company _choose_ to make their announcements
| have to fight against every other announcement in the entire
| industry. That's a great way for your story to be buried.
|
| If you hold your own event, it's YOUR show. You can show what
| you want, when you want, your way. You don't have to compete.
| You don't have to pay someone else for the privilege.
|
| Aren't some companies dropping out (or at least holding many
| announcements back) from CES as well?
|
| You no longer have to convince the press to cover you, you
| can reach your audience directly. For video games a trade
| show doesn't make much sense.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _If you hold your own event, it's YOUR show. You can show
| what you want, when you want, your way. You don't have to
| compete. You don't have to pay someone else for the
| privilege._
|
| You say that as if BlizzCon hasn't gone from competing with
| E3 to dead in less than five years.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I think it's less about announcing yourself online, but
| announcing yourself when and where you wanted to.
|
| The writing was on the wall when Apple pulled out of Macworld
| for their annual keynote in 2008. Why do these companies need
| someone elses stage to announce their products?
| papichulo2023 wrote:
| Didnt most people watch the event on streams/videos anyways? I
| dont they are interested in those couple of thousands that
| assisted in person
| OJFord wrote:
| I assume they want(ed) the hype & reaction though - just like
| recording a sitcom or chat show in front of a live audience,
| most people watching aren't there!
| georgeecollins wrote:
| The truth is the opposite. I went to the first E3 the day
| before I began my first day at Activision. In those days it was
| the only game show in North America. You could walk in and say
| hi to the CEO. There weren't a lot of ways to communicate about
| your products and your company. Who you really wanted to reach
| in those days was buyers for stores. The press barely existed.
|
| Since then it has gone through so many permutations. You
| started to care more about the press then the public. Then you
| started to be able to really promote games online.
|
| So is E3 failing because its more effective to promote online
| then at live events? No. In fact if you have a good budget to
| promote a game you are going to spend more of it on live events
| then you did in the old days. The why is complicated, but I
| would say the main reason is its harder to advertise online
| then it used to be, press has less influence and you need to
| have organic interest.
|
| So every big publisher has their own live event. And people
| spend a fortune on PAX, various ComiCons, etc. All of this
| stuff went online because of COVID but it is coming back
| bigger.
|
| The problem for E3 was that when it started it was the only
| game in town. Now the business is exponentially bigger and
| there are many events to choose from. If you have deep pockets
| or a loyal fan base you can your own event.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There is also that local cons are more available now and you
| can upload the presentations at those to reach people not in
| your area.
|
| International developers have a harder time of it since they
| need to travel long hours and sort out visas. And a lot of
| game dev is outside US. In general COVID kind of spurred
| rethinking of how much business travel is truly needed or
| desired.
| isk517 wrote:
| Also, your not competing against every other
| publisher/developer for space in the news because everything is
| getting announced over a 3-4 day period.
| segasaturn wrote:
| Something to take into consideration is "the cringe factor". E3
| is infamous(?) for live presentations that go very poorly with
| the audience. Honestly for some people it was the show's main
| draw, to see moments like "giant enemy crab" or the Konami 2010
| event. Companies like Nintendo realized that prerecorded videos
| are much, much safer.
| web3-is-a-scam wrote:
| Tradeshows for videogames is kindof an outdated concept now with
| every game company having easy access to live streaming and
| social media. I grew up with E3 and I'm a little sad to see it
| go, but that's just the world changing and becoming more
| efficient.
| ParksNet wrote:
| AAA gaming - as we have known it - is dead as long as major
| platforms continue with 30% commissions. All of the profits
| accrue to the platform owners, with studios either failing or
| being acquired by them.
|
| The end result is a weak industry mostly dominated by skinner box
| free2play games or gambling apps.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| AAA games are most likely doing better than ever. Which might
| exactly be the problem why E3 is no longer relevant. The
| platform owners and big game publishers now prefer to host
| their own announcement events at different times of the year
| instead of having to compete for gamer attention all within the
| same crammed time window of a few days.
| mkl95 wrote:
| I usually followed E3 for the Nintendo content. With Nintendo
| Direct events being so frequent and production values being so
| good, E3 makes no sense anymore.
| skee8383 wrote:
| Might as well cancel it. The games are non-existent. and the
| quality of the games they have been releasing look like xbox 360
| graphics. Not to mention Microsoft buying up every studio they
| can get their hands on.
| favorited wrote:
| That's not why it's being cancelled. Most of the big players
| will still have press conferences and/or in-person events this
| summer, they are just doing them themselves rather than under
| the E3 umbrella.
| dmarcos wrote:
| GDC took place last week in SF . Is it also at risk, does it have
| good reasons to still exist?
|
| edit: typo
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Zero chance GDC goes away, it's a developer focused conference
| and is way more than just press releases and announcements. If
| you've never been to it GDC is non-stop talks and technical
| sessions, it's an invaluable resource for people in the
| industry.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| I wouldn't be so sure about that TBH. Before Covid a lot of
| people were already complaining that it's starting to get
| really expensive to attend in person (especially from
| Europe), and technical presentations can just as well be
| attended online or later at your own leisure. Which basically
| only leaves the parties as a reason to attend, and games
| companies might start thinking twice whether that's worth the
| money to send their employees in person ;)
| VHRanger wrote:
| GDC is aimed at devs. E3 was aimed at the unwashed masses.
|
| Different audiences entirely. GDC is more like a trade
| conference.
| MBCook wrote:
| E3 wasn't aimed at normal people. It was aimed at the press.
| Then they would put the coverage of what they're excited
| about in their magazines.
|
| Companies can now reach both the press and fans directly any
| time.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| > E3 was aimed at the unwashed masses.
|
| Back in its heyday E3 was purely a business event (e.g. you
| had to work in the games industry one way or another to be
| allowed in). Might have changed in recent years though, I
| didn't really pay attention anymore since around 2010 or so.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| Actually the first few E3 was open to anyone. Then for a
| few years they had a day where anyone could come. One of my
| happiest memories was demonstrating my game on the floor of
| E3 to fans. It was really nice to talk to gamers about the
| game after spending time with the retail chains and press.
|
| Then E3 got so big you had to be in the industry. Then
| another year they tried to move it to multiple venues. That
| is the core problem- who is E3 for? GDC is for game
| developers.
| isk517 wrote:
| E3 has traditionally been aimed at the media. It's only been
| in resent years that the general public has been allowed in,
| and even that move was seen by most as a attempt to keep the
| event from dying.
| Kye wrote:
| I thought E3 ended ages ago with more companies going direct.
| That's probably why they weren't able to get enough interest:
| between people who are sure they remember either a shutdown or a
| major change and actual structural changes, there weren't enough
| people.
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