Introduction
I have been a fan of E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) for a very long time. For those that are not aware of E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is a video game conference, which is presented by the ESA (Entertainment Software Association). You can see new video games that will come out. Sometimes you get to see prototypes of games that will never be released. Many publishers and developers will have keynotes that will show their new product. At the time that this started, there were few of these types of conferences around. Today, there are dozens of them. PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) has a few on its own. E3 is known more of a press event than fan expo.
This fist conference was held long time ago from May 11–13, 1995 (almost 22 years) in Los Angeles. The first E3 was considered a really big expo, and it had one of the biggest debuts of any trade show or expo. The first edition had roughly 49 000 attendees. In comparison, on June 2016, which was the last E3, the Expo had an attendance of about 50,000 attendees. The attendance has been steady to say the least.
E3 Announcement
This year E3 announced that they will allow for the first time, regular fans (non press), to purchase tickets to attend this big event. Tickets will be priced at 250$ USD. However, if you are quick enough and purchased your tickets on February 13th, 2017, you will be eligible or the early bird special. Tickets then will be only 150$ USD. This will allow fans to be like the big boys and potentially get their hands on the newest games that are going to come out. It will allow access to the presentations and the floor.
Last year E3 toyed with this idea, by having an E3 Live Event, in the Los Angeles Convention center. According to organizers it was such a success that they decided to open the "floor" to the public.
Bottomline
I think that there is more to this announcement than meets the eye. Personally, this is not an event that I will go to. I can get all the news from the comfort of my home. I do not have to deal with big crowds. Every time I have gone to an event or conference, I always got back home sick with some kind of virus. So this does not interest me at all.
Other than my personal opinion of why I would not go, I think there are other reasons as well. For the last few years, some of the big publishers have opted to do their own thing . In some cases they have booths, but they do not make any new announcements until their own events. EA has created their own fan event, named EA Play. Sony has also created their own fan event named Playstation Experience.
As I mentioned above, there are other game shows and events such as PAX and TGS (Tokyo Game Show). So E3 has kind of lost its exclusivity, and now have to share the piece of the pie with other organizers. Yes it is at different times of the year, but most people will choose one and not attend the others.
So E3, I believe is trying to make up for the loss of attendance by extending the offer to fans of video games. On the surface that may be noble, but in the end this is not really a fan expo. There are not many stations where you can try the games. The ones that are available, you need to stand in line of up to 8 hours. This was the case last year for Nintendo, where they only had 1 game to demo. This is more a press oriented affair as this is where you can interview publishers and so on. Outside of playing the games, there is not much for a fan to do. For me, if my option was to either play games or watch a keynote, I would vote for the playing of the games. I can watch the keynote with no one standing in front of me, live, in the comfort of my PJ's.
I am not sure that this will work but I know that for me, this did not peak my interest one bit. May be one year I might go with friends but for now, this is not an event I would like to go to.
Let me know what you think. Would you go to E3? If, so, why? If not, why not?
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