From one perspective, there are the publishers. They spend a crazy amount of money each spring in order to draw attention to their booths, hoping to capture the attention of gamers. Then there are the developers who work like mad so that publishers can impress passersby, or so that they can impress publishers enough to pick up their games. There are the retailers looking to see which games they should order come fall. Then there is the media. Those big industry media types will send practically everyone they can to spend every waking hour (and then some) working so that they can claim to have the best coverage. Then there are those smaller media outlets that just want to have fun, to meet people, and to bring their communities closer to the action. Lastly, there's everyone else, from the online bloggers with an audience of one, to the kid who works in a games store, to those with fake company business cards, who are only in it for themselves.
Together, all those people formed a crowd of over 70,000, with 400 exhibitors in May 2005, the biggest year in the history of E3. For this year, the ESA imposed stricter regulations that brought the number of attendees down to about 60,000. Supposedly, the biggest players in the industry, namely EA and Activision, didn't feel that the change was significant enough, and threatened to pull out of the event completely unless radical changes were imposed. With a new name, E3 Media Festival plans to be open to about 5,000 invited guests in 2007.
"There was a time when the concept of E3 was a good one," an industry insider tells N-Philes, "a tradeshow where game publishers could preview their upcoming titles for two key audiences - retail buyers and the press. In theory, it should be a win-win. Unfortunately, in recent years, its turned more into a 'lose-lose.' At least that's the case for the medium and smaller publishers, who couldn't compete with the mini-mall-sized booths created by the larger publishers. Once many of the key press stopped covering the entire show, there really was little reason for the bulk of the exhibitors to be there."
E3 as it was favored the largest publishers, especially the hardware manufacturers. After all, they are usually the ones who have the high profile titles that everybody wants to hear about. The majority of the press tend to spend the first two days of the event at the large booths, playing the titles on the show floor and relaying their gaming experiences to the ever faithful reader. However, every media outlet knows that someone else is covering the same things, so by the third day, they want to seek out the hidden gems and all the other promising games that shouldn't be overlooked, mainly those found in Kentia Hall.
