For as long as I’ve been writing this blog E3 hasn’t been much more than a distraction when it rolls around. Indeed in the 7 years I’ve been writing about games I’ve only ever covered it twice and usually only in passing, picking out a couple things that piqued my interest at the time. The reasons behind this would be obvious to any gamer as E3 has been largely irrelevant to the gaming community since about 2007 with most of the big announcements coming out of other conventions like PAX. However this year something seemed to change as the both the gaming industry and community seemed to rally behind this years expo, making it one of the most talked about to date.
The reason behind E3’s quick fall into obscurity was fuelled by the extremely questionable decision back in 2007 to close off the event to the general public and instead only allow games industry representatives and journalists. The first year after this was done saw the attendance drop to a mere 10,000 (down from 60,000 the year previous) and the following year saw it drop by half again. The other conventions that popped up in E3’s absence soaked up all these attendees and, by consequence, all of the attention of the games industry and press. Thus E3 spent the last 5 years attempting to rebuild its relevance but struggled to find a foothold with such stiff competition.
This year however has proven to be E3’s one of its greatest on record with attendance above 50,000 for the first time since they made that awful decision all those years ago. This rise in attendance has also come hand in hand with a much greater industry presence, boasting a much greater presence from major game developers and publishers. There were also numerous major announcements from pretty much all of the large players in the console and PC markets, something we really hadn’t seen at a single event for some time. For someone who’s been extremely jaded about E3 for so long it honestly took me by surprise just how relevant E3 had become and what that might mean for the conference’s future.
The challenge that E3 now faces is building on the momentum that they’ve created this year in order to re-cement their position as top dog of the games conferences. In it absence many of the larger players in the games industry opted to either patronize other conferences or set up their own, many of which have now gone on to be quite profitable events (like BlizzCon, for example). E3 will likely never be able to replace them however given the resounding success of this year’s conference there is potential for them to start drawing business away from some of the other conferences.
In the end though more competition in this space will hopefully lead to better things for the wider gaming community. It will be interesting to see if E3 can repeat their success next year and what the other conventions will be doing in response.
