Is E3 Still Relevant?

It's a question the gaming industry has been asking for a while, fueled partly by some dramatic disagreements within the Entertainment Software Association. Is the E3 trade show still relevant or is it a waste of time and money?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,
How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
How Stuff Works and I heart Radio and I love
all things tech. And today we're gonna tackle a topic
that has become sort of an annual tradition in tech

(00:27):
journalism in general and video game journalism in particular, and
that is to discuss E three the Electronic Entertainment Expo
and whether or not there's still a place for E three,
Is it still relevant, and to really get an idea
of why we have this conversation, and we've been having

(00:49):
it over and over. I mean, the earliest article I
found with that sort of title was from two thousand twelve,
and I have no doubt that there are even earlier versions.
But to understand why we're asking that question, it would
behoove us to know more about the history of E three.
So back in several video game publishers came together to

(01:11):
create what was called the Interactive Digital Software Association or
i d s A. This is what would eventually become
the E s A, and that is the organization that
oversees e three, but in the original days it was
the I D s A. And the purpose was to
form a group that could create industry standards for rating

(01:33):
video games, in other words, to indicate whether or not
the game was appropriate for certain age groups, so very
similar to the m p A, a rating system for movies.
So if you've ever picked up a video game and
you've seen the rating system on there, that's from this organization.
And this was in response to the threat of the
United States government stepping in and regulating the industry itself.

(01:55):
Joe Lieberman had proposed the Video Games Rating Act, so
to get ahead of this and to make sure that
the industry could remain in control of its own destiny, publishers,
lots of the major video game publishers got together and
created the I D s A and the ratings system.
And the I D s A didn't just stop with

(02:16):
the rating system. That was its primary purpose for coming
into being, but they came up with another idea in
addition to that, and that was to hold a trade
show exclusively for console and computer games. And this was
to address two big challenges. The first was a practical
challenge for I D essay itself. They needed to have

(02:38):
some way to fund this organization. If it was going
to exist to give out these ratings, it had to
have enough money to operate. So how could the organization
generate money on in that instance? And and the trade
show was tried and true method, so that was reason one,
a practical reason just to keep the I d s
A going, But reason too to do with visibility. Previously,

(03:02):
game companies would exhibit at shows like the Consumer Electronics
Show or ce S in the United States, but that's
an enormous show of all consumer electronics as a broad
approach to electronics, and video games would get lost in
the shuffle. They were often pushed off to a remote location,
far from the main traffic of the floor. Sometimes they'd

(03:23):
be put in environments that were really unsuitable for showing
off hardware. There's a famous story that Sega was determined
not to go back to c e S after being
put in a tent in a parking lot and during
a rainstorm, that tent proved to be less than waterproof,
and so water was leaking down on video game consoles

(03:45):
and that was unacceptable. So video game developers and publishers
found it really difficult to meet with retailers and press
in order to get their products into stores and to
promote their products. In other words, they were spending a
lot of money going to these trade shows and they
weren't getting much out of it. And back in those days,
which would be the early to mid nineteen nineties, video

(04:05):
games were more of a niche product. Even the best
selling video game of nine, which was at least according
to most sources, Mortal Kombat three. Even that could be
measured in the hundreds of thousands of copies sold. That's
not bad, but today when you look at best selling games,
those can hit several million copies sold. So it seemed

(04:27):
like a good idea to organize an industry focused event
just for video and computer games. Companies would get an
opportunity to showcase new hardware and new video game titles
to retailers and to the press, and not have to
worry about being shoved off in a tent in a
parking lot far from the main show floor of an
event like C E S Now. At first, the I

(04:48):
D SAY approached Gary Shapiro, that's the head hauncho of
the C E S Trade show in those days, and
the I D S a reps made their case to them.
They actually were first saying, can we get better, uh,
you know, better consideration at c S. Can we get
a better arrangement? But Shapiro's response was fairly dismissive. He

(05:09):
essentially said, you guys aren't making quote unquote real consumer electronics,
so they're not going to get a prime spot for
the show. And word of this meeting between the I
D s A and Shapiro got back to a guy
named Pat Farrell, and Pat Farrell was in charge of
the Game Pro magazine and it was also at that

(05:32):
time part of a media conglomerate I d G, and
I d G already had experience running big industry events.
I d G would run mac World. So Farrell expressed
interest to the I D S essay for pitching a
trade show idea to them. But then that information got
back to Shapiro, you know, the guy running C E S.

(05:55):
And when he heard that, he had a sudden change
of heart, or more likely he since the opportunity to
make some real cash, and he announced that C E
S intended to launch its own games only trade show,
and the I D s A was kind of delighted
because now they had two different parties that were eager
to do this thing that they wanted to do, and

(06:17):
so they invited both parties to pitch their ideas to them,
and the two pitches were about as different as night
and day. Shapiro's team was citing facts and figures and
arguing that the prestige of c E s could raise
the profile of the video games industry in general. Meanwhile,
Pat Ferrell's pitch was from the point of view of

(06:38):
video game companies, and more importantly, it included an offer
of partial ownership in the trade show itself. The I
D s A would get around a five percent take
of the gross revenue generated by the trade show. Shapiro,
on the other hand, pretty much was demanding full ownership
of the trade show, so it was kind of a

(07:00):
no brainer. The I D s A chose to side
with the I D G slash Ferrell approach. Now that's
not to say that all the companies in the video
game industry were totally on board. Nintendo and Microsoft, for example,
two big names. Though Microsoft had yet to launch its
own video game console, it was still very much involved

(07:20):
in the video game world. Both of those companies chose
to continue exhibiting with the c e S approach. In fact,
they said, well, we'll go with the c e S
backed video game trade show. At least at first, that's
what they've said. Now that would change pretty quickly, but
it did show how in the early days there was
a lot of doubt about this endeavor and whether I

(07:43):
d G could pull it off. Farrell came up with
the name Electronic Entertainment Expo, and he would call it
e CUBED for short, but everybody else called it E
three and that name stuck. The original plan was to
hold the event in Las Vegas, and it was going
to be in mid summer. However, Shapiro planned the alternative

(08:05):
games focused show, the ce S backed version, and that
was going to happen in Philadelphia in mid May, so
he was setting a show that would predate Farrell's show.
He felt like he was being out maneuvered. Farrell that
it is, and he was worried that if companies would
commit to going to Shapiro's show, no one would commit

(08:27):
to E three. So Farrel did something fairly crazy. He
called up the Los Angeles Convention Center and he asked
if they had the availability for the exact same dates
as Shapiro's Philadelphia show, and it just so happened to
have those dates available. So that's when Farrell decided he
was not going to hold the event in Las Vegas,

(08:49):
and it would not be in Midsummer. Instead, it would
be in mid May in Los Angeles, which he thought
would be really attractive for Japanese companies because it would
be just a single flight into l a X, as
opposed to having to land in l a X and
then transfer to a different flight to fly all the
way over to Philadelphia. And then he got on the

(09:09):
horn and started to invite as many companies as possible
to exhibit at E three, and he figured there's no
way that these companies would be able to have a
presence at two shows simultaneously. They would have to pick
either E three or the C E S backed games
only show. Now, Microsoft and Nintendo continued to hold out.

(09:32):
They continued to back the C E S side, but
he got lots of other companies on board, and Shapiro
meanwhile found that it was getting harder and harder to
fill his show with companies. He had Microsoft and Nintendo
on board, but everybody else was signing with E three,
and he couldn't fill out the entire convention hall with

(09:53):
just two companies, so ultimately he decided that he had
to cancel this Philadelphia exhibition, and he reportedly called up
Farrell and said you won, and then hung up, And
so E three became the only game in town, so
to speak, pun intended, and that's when Microsoft and Nintendo

(10:14):
finally came over, because they really had no other alternative
at that point. Now, once it became the only game
trade show in the United States, E three suddenly had
no problem selling exhibition space in general. In fact, it
ran out of show floor space at the Convention Center
pretty quickly, and then they began to reserve hotel ballrooms
in nearby hotels, so it began to expand beyond just

(10:36):
the convention Center. Sega and Sony were both really big
presences at the At the show, they took up most
of one of the two main halls at the convention Center,
and they were both showing off new video game consoles,
the Saturn and the PlayStation. Nintendo showed off a very
early prototype of what would become the Nintendo sixty four,

(10:58):
but was mostly focus son S E S games at
that At that particular show, also they launched a beloved
platform called the Virtual Boy. And yes I'm being tongue
in cheek there. The Virtual Boy is one of the
famous flops from Nintendo, but they showed that off at
that first E three and you can actually see what

(11:20):
the first E three looked like. A guy named Anthony
Parisi uploaded more than three hours of video footage that
he shot during that show and it's available on YouTube. Uh.
He has footage of several press events which at that
time were much more business like in their presentation. I
mean think like power point presentations and guys in suits

(11:42):
speaking in monotone to a crowd, not very dynamic. And
later on those would obviously become much bigger budget showcases
for companies and have a lot of theater wrapped up
in it. But early in the E three history it
was much more business oriented. Many booths, once you were

(12:03):
on the show floor, would actually have a sort of
stage show to kind of attract people to the various
booths and and show off the games. And of course,
even at the very first E three there were the
so called booth babes, women who had been hired as
spokesmodels for those companies. The official estimate of attendees for
that first E three was at fifty five thousand people,

(12:26):
although Farrell says that the number was probably more than that.
It was enough to capture the attention of the mainstream media,
and thus it elevated the trade show in the eyes
of many, and it achieved one of the big goals
that the I D. S A had set in the
first place. The I D s A eventually would be
able to buy out I D G and become the
sole owner of the E three trade show, so the

(12:49):
show would grow, though there were some problems. Not every
year was a huge success. The third and fourth E
three had to move to a different venue. It ended
up moving here in Atlanta. That was because there were
scheduling conflicts with the Los Angeles Convention Center that had
already been booked for different events during the dates for
E three and UH the Atlanta shows were not as

(13:11):
well attended. It was only a temporary move. It kind
of bums me out because if it had all worked out,
I may be able to visit E three and still
sleep in my own bed each night, but that's not
how things turned out. The booths would slowly get more
elaborate over the years, becoming more immersive experiences. So instead
of it just being you know, a couple of polls

(13:32):
and some curtains to divide one booth from another, now
they have booths that are made to look like the
environments that were inspired by various games like sky Rim
or Fallout or whatever. Booth babes would continue to be
a thing, and the show got bigger and more elaborate
and more audacious each year, becoming more like a party

(13:53):
like atmosphere until two thousand seven. At that point, the
e essay, of course, was what the I D. S
A evolved into re evaluated the show, and the reason
they did that was because companies were starting to raise
concerns about the expense around securing and building out a
booth space at E three, because now it was costing

(14:14):
millions of dollars to do it, and there was a
growing number of attendees from smaller outlets like blogs, and
they were making the show floor really crowded, and more importantly,
they demonstrated a very small return on investment. That if
companies were catering to these bloggers, but the bloggers had
just a few or relatively few number of readers, then

(14:37):
that was not a great return on the investment of
time and effort on the part of the publishers, and
it was making really hard for industry attendees like retailers
and larger media outlets to actually get their jobs done
because of these crowds. And there were several companies that
were considering withdrawing from the show entirely, and that could

(14:57):
have caused a cascade effect with more companies pulling out,
like if the big companies pull out, then there's a
chance that the medium sized companies will pull out, and
then a chance that the smaller ones will pull out.
As such, the e s A decided to pare down
the two thousand seven and two thousand eight E three
events to kind of prevent this from happening and to
make it more manageable, and so two thousand seven it

(15:19):
would become the E three Media and Business Summit. And
it sounded like it wasn't much fun. It sounds like
it really wasn't like it was very much business oriented
and and uh also decentralized. It was spread out among
a host of hotels and meeting spaces in Los Angeles.

(15:39):
It wasn't in a centralized convention center. It was also
invitation only. There was an attendance of just ten thousand
people for those shows, and it was all trying to
meet these concerns, but the approach backfired. People began to
question whether or not E three really meant anything. They
felt that it wasn't raising the profile of the video

(16:00):
games anymore. So in two thousand nine, three would expand
back again, opening up for a much larger attendance, although
they still limited it. They capped it at forty or
fifty thousand really now since then the event has grown,
but some companies have withdrawn from E three. Nintendo no
longer holds live press events at E three. They elect

(16:23):
instead to do a video presentation called Nintendo Direct. The
company does still maintain a presence on the show floor itself, however,
Starting in two thousand fifteen, the EESA began to release
a limited number of tickets for the general public for
E three, and in two thousand seventeen that would blossom
into the policy of selling several thousand public passes to

(16:46):
average video gamers. That has prompted some people like me
to really dread going to the show because the added
crowds make it super hard to get work done. I
don't begrudge anyone having a good time. It's just hard
to cover stuff if you can't get to any of it.
And it's a similar concern that led to the E

(17:06):
s A making that big drastic change in two thousand seven.
But so far it doesn't look like it's going to
repeat that now this past E three. The two thousand
nineteen E three saw Sony abstain from attending. That was
a big blow to the conference in general. I mean,
having a major console and games publisher, UH decide not

(17:29):
to go to your trade show is not great. Although
there were plenty of publishers that were showing off games
that would play on Sony PlayStations, Sony itself wasn't there.
Other big names like e A have also opted to
hold their own press events on their own terms rather
than run a press conference at E three itself. Moreover,

(17:51):
companies like Blizzard have been holding their own events for
several years, and there are other big conventions like Packs
that are designed from the start to be events where
video game enthusiasts get a chance to try out games
before they come out, and it gives game publishers the
chance to connect with their fan bases. So all of
this leads us to ask the question, is E three
still relevant with all of these changes that have happened.

(18:14):
The original intent was to create a space where the
relatively niche hobby of video games could be in the spotlight.
But today the video game industry is enormous and its mainstream.
It's no longer the relatively obscure business that was the
laughing stock of the consumer electronics industry back in According

(18:34):
to the market analysis company new Zoo, the industry the
video game industry in general, earned just shy of one
thirty five billion dollars in revenue in two thousand eighteen.
That's about three times as much revenue as the film industry,
So video games are making three times as much money

(18:57):
per year as movies. That's major in the Internet age,
when it is relatively easy and less expensive to produce
a video or do a live stream and to reach
a huge audience on your own schedule, and where there
are already other events to cater to touching base with gamers,
does it make sense to keep holding E three or

(19:18):
should something change? Well, when we come back, I'll be
talking with Shannon Morse, who attended E three two thousand,
nineteen to get her perspective on the event and its future.
But first, let's take a quick break al right, guys,

(19:40):
joining me on this episode is a dear friend of mine,
a superstar when it comes to the world of reporting
on technology, hacker extraordinaire, and just an incredible person. One
of the most friendly people in tech I've ever had
the pleasure of meeting, Shannon Morse. Shannon, welcome back to

(20:01):
the show. Hi, Jonathan, thank you for having me back on.
It's super exciting to be here. I love whenever we
have you on. You always have great insight. And uh
and I'm not joking, folks. She's like, they're like a
couple of people on a short list of people in
tech who have been consistently awesome. Shannon's on that list.
Tom Merritt is on that list. There are very few

(20:21):
and far between, so you are a treasure. Shannon tom Merritt's.
Tom Merritt is one of my mentors, so I definitely
look up to him and I will thank you. That
was really really sweet of you to say absolutely absolutely.
I mean, it's it's all true, so it's easy. But
more importantly, for the purposes of this show. We are
going to talk to Shannon about her experience at E

(20:42):
three nineteen, because, as I've already explained, I did not
go to that show. But Shannon, you did attend E
three twenty nineteen. Can you tell us what you were
there doing and you know what was your experience like
this past year? Yeah? Sure, So I have been to
E three in the past, back in like twenty fourteen,
so this was my second time going to E three

(21:04):
as a video host slash producer. So this time I
was there with n Video g Force. They have their
own YouTube channel, and I was just doing a bunch
of interviews with a bunch of game developers. Uh So
I was specifically with them for one day before the
show floor opened up to the public, and then the
second day I asked them if I could just stay

(21:25):
an extra day and I ran around on my own
to get my own vlogs for my personal channel, which
is YouTube dot com slash Shannon Morris. I hope you
don't mind that I promote at all, but yeah, but
the second day it did open up to the public
after I believe it was one PM, So I got
to experience both sides, one being it just for you know,

(21:46):
trade workers, people that are in the game developer trade
or there as press. And then I also got to
see it opened up to the public, so it was
kind of interesting seeing it from both perspectives and being
on the show floor to watch that happen. Uh. And
that was the first time that it was open to
the public, since it wasn't originally when I when I

(22:06):
first went to E three. Yeah, yeah, when the last
time I went to E three, I think it was
the second year that they started selling tickets to the public.
You know, as you say, for years, it was industry
only and you were only going in if you were
a developer, publisher, if you were a retailer or an
analyst in the industry, or you were pressed. That was

(22:28):
essentially the group. And then press got real lucy goosey. Uh,
just like at C E S where we have everything
from the big outlets, you know, the big the really
big established media companies too, you know mom and pop
blogs that are run by you know, Joe or Jane
video gamer extraordinaire. And that's the only reason why I

(22:51):
was ever able to go. So I'm not I'm not
denigrated to get it by any means, but it was
a very different experience when I saw that too, like
the idea that opening it up and having a very
enthusiastic gaming public come in. What was your perception of
how that was received? Because I have my own thoughts,
but I don't want to I don't want to color

(23:14):
your perception with mine. I'd rather hear what you thought
first and then we can talk about it. I Well,
my perception is that I honestly felt like this year's
E three was smaller, And it might have been because
some major game manuf brands like Microsoft, for example, Xbox,

(23:36):
they weren't there on the show floor. Neither was Sony,
and that was really really big news before the convention
even happened. And even so, when a lot of people
came in as the public at one pm, uh, the
lines were super long. They were crazy, crazy long, and
it just it felt a little bit disappointing in a
lot of ways. Uh, just because the show floor felt

(23:58):
really small. It felt like it was a little overcrowded
when the public came in, and there were hours and
hours long lines. So when I was there just on
my own without the end video crew, it was almost
impossible for me to play any games because the lines,
like at the Nintino booth were four hours long. So honestly,
I was I was a little bit disappointed that it

(24:19):
was open to the public, and I think that if
they had planned it differently like a lot of other
expos do, like Games Calm and things like that, then
it could have gone a lot more smoother with the
public entering, uh, and then be a lot easier to
get your job done if you are in the industry
and still have a really good time. Um, you know,
even when I go to video game conferences as public,

(24:43):
because I don't always go as pressed because I like
to play video games too. I really like it whenever
I can either you know, set up a meeting or
set up a time that I can go to a
booth and play a video game, or the lines are
are set up so that everything goes really smoothly, like
they have a whole bunch of different people playing games
so that like at different times, so that the line

(25:05):
just keeps on moving and it doesn't feel like you're
sitting there for four hours. So that was kind of unfortunate,
And I don't know, I feel like maybe they should
move to a new venue. I have so many thoughts
about this. I have so many thoughts. Yeah, I so
my my beliefs. By the way, that's if you can
hear Shannon's kitty cat in the background. And I no, no no,

(25:27):
I'm fully in favor of having kitty cats on tech stuff.
If I were allowed to bring cats into the office,
we would have them. But no, I was gonna say
that my perception is very much the same as yours,
and that from from a press perspective, it is frustrating
because it makes your job harder to do. And I
don't want to say that, you know, other people shouldn't

(25:49):
have a good time so that I can do my
job and that I get to have all the fun
and no one else does. That's not what I mean.
But I do mean that things where you might have
been able to cover maybe a dozen stories in a
day if you were really booking it, you're down to
maybe three in a in a typical day. And that's
even booking the meetings with the different publishers. And then

(26:12):
as a I had four meetings booked the first day
and that's it. That's all we were able to get
in for just because it was so overcrowding. Yeah, yeah,
And then, like if I were there as a ticket holder,
let's say that I'm there as general public, so no
longer wearing the press hat, I would have a very
frustrating experience. As you already alluded to this problem of

(26:33):
standing in line for a very long time to play
a maybe a ten minute slice of a video game,
because your perception of what you're you have going into
it is that you're going to have a chance to
play a game before anyone else does. So it puts
you in an elite group. And there's there's already an
attraction to being part of an elite group, right you

(26:54):
are part of a special few that were able to
experience something before anyone else did. That's something that we
all kind of crave at one time or another. I'm
sure there have been times where you've had chance to
get your hands on certain technology or go to see
a movie before anyone else, and it's impossible to deny
there is this sense of being special by being part
of that group. And you know, in the grand scheme,

(27:17):
you take a big step back, you think, oh, that
might seem a little petty. I'm saying that someone who
experiences that whenever it happens to me, I I am
not so big that I don't still feel like who
I get a chance to do something special? So I
get the appeal, but the problem is the reality is
the capacity is limited. There's usually a handful of titles

(27:38):
that everyone really wants to check out, which means that
those areas are completely slammed. Nintendo, just as a brand,
is always in that group. I remember waiting in line
to get a chance to try out the three D
three D S when it first came out, and I
remember Brian tong of seen that passing me by and
he's like, strickling, why are you in this line. I'm like,

(28:00):
because I don't have a pass like you do for this.
And this was before the general public was allowed in,
so I was there was no general public that year,
and so Tom's like, well, I'm just gonna go up
to the front. I'm like, yeah, you worn't for seen it.
Of course you're going to go up to the front.
I don't get to do that. So he even belonged
to an even more elite group. Uh. But but this

(28:22):
is the sort of frustration you can experience, and it
makes me question about the wisdom of laying the general
public in not because it makes my job harder, but
because I wonder if it does more harm than good,
because I can't imagine it's a very positive experience for
your average attendee. No, it can't be. And I even
looked at the day of prices for tickets as general public,

(28:46):
and they were over nine dollars if you decided to
purchase the day of. The reasoning on E three's website
was to you know, keep it from getting too overcrowded.
So on their website they said something along the line
of to prevent overcrowdedness. Day of tickets purchased at the
convention floor over nine and I was like, that's insane.

(29:09):
So it feels like to me, this is purely my opinion,
but it feels like E three is trying to make
people online happy by introducing a public time that people
can come in no matter who you are. But at
the same time, they're not growing out the venue space,
they're not growing out the abilities for the boosts to

(29:29):
get bigger or anything like that. To help with that
huge change. They're trying to turn it into a convention,
but it's still an expo for industry, and they're treating
it like it's still industry even though they're allowing all
this all the public in. I love going to public conventions.
That's one of my favorite things to do. I love cosplay,
I love playing video games like that is my life.

(29:52):
I am a congoer for life. But going to this
convention feels kind of confusing because they're dressing it to
very business e but for the public persona, what they're
telling people online is we're still relevant. You should come
to this convention. And it's not a convention, it's an
industry expo. It's just weird. It's like it would be

(30:14):
like opening up c e s to the general public,
which I don't even want to mention a nightmare, nightmare scenario,
but yeah, it's It's one of those things where I
agree that this this this mishmash of approaches where something
that works for one type of event doesn't necessarily work

(30:34):
for another, and you're you're getting you're not getting the
best of both worlds, You're kind of getting the worst
of both worlds, where it's getting very frustrating. I can't
I don't know how developers feel about this, or publishers.
I don't know if they find it frustrating with this experience.
I am very curious about their opinions, but honestly, I've

(30:55):
never been able to talk with them about what is
your perspective this the way that the event has changed.
Does that is that something that you view as a
positive or is it something that ultimately you worry about,
Because obviously, if the general public has a bad experience
at E three, and it may have nothing to do
with the actual quality of the game, it may reflect

(31:17):
poorly on the games that are there, and then you
get bad early buzz for a game that can kill
a game before it even comes out, so that that
has to be a worry too. Alright. Well, and there's
still a lot of games that do introduce news at
E three as opposed to doing their own personal show
or introduction or promoting it at games Com. So E

(31:39):
three still is the place where a lot of news happens.
It's just not treating itself like that. Well that that
seguys really nicely into this discussion that comes up every year.
I remember I did a search, just sort of a
cursory search of is E three relevant? And you know,
there's no shortage of articles that pop up, and one
of the earliest ones came from two thousand twelve, long

(32:01):
before they opened it up to the public, so this
has clearly been been an ongoing annual exercise. I think
I think we we have the the life cycle of
E three each year is here's the hype before the show,
here's all the rumors, here are all the guesses of
what's going to be shown off, who's going to come
out with a new console. Then you have the initial

(32:23):
announcements that pre date E three, and people say, well,
what's left to say at E three now that these
other things have been announced. Then you have E three itself,
and you have the endless amount of analysis that comes
out of that. Then post E three, after everyone's got
that sort of the concrude, they're like, hey, is there
any reason to even have this thing anymore? That seems
to be every year, So Shannon, is there any reason

(32:45):
to have this thing anymore? I think it still holds
a little bit of a place in my heart as
well a lot of other people who like to go
there and be the first person to play a video game,
So in that sense, like it's still really fun to
do so, but in the grand scheme of things, you
don't really need a big convention like E three. That's

(33:09):
for industry professional but but as inviting the public. I
feel like, and a lot of people feel this way
about C E S two. You can stay at home
now and get all the news that you need, and
you can pre order the games and still get early
access to whatever you want. So in the day and
age of social media, and in the day and age
of being able to contact a lot of these brands directly,

(33:31):
you might not need this kind of industry event anymore. Yeah,
I see that the Internet has really enabled companies to
reach out to their their fan base directly and you
can circumvent the need for the big centralized event. It
also means that if you take that approach, then you
can announce things on your schedule as opposed to a

(33:53):
centralized schedule. We've seen this with C E S. I
mean my first year of going to C E S
I believe was the final year that Microsoft was there,
and then Microsoft pulled out the following year, and the
justification was, well, why should we have an annual event
that's not under our own control where we're expected to

(34:14):
announce all the things we plan to do that year.
We would much rather do that on our own schedule.
This is of course something that Apple had been doing
for years and would continue to do so over the
following years, and you're starting to see that with game
companies to Nintendo holds Nintendo directs on a fairly regular basis,
not just around E three, but also at other times
of the year. PlayStation has their events that they're doing.

(34:37):
E A has held their own events, So we're not
just seeing it from console makers, we're seeing it from
publishers as well. And whether you're holding an actual event,
like a physical location where people are coming and they're
playing the games, or you're more like Nintendo where you
produce a video ahead of time, which helps you really
cut down on those cringeworthy segments because you can edit

(34:58):
those after you've shot them. Very Yeah, we missed the
cringe worthy segments because that's something for us to talk about,
but it's it works better for the company. Uh. But
the fact that you can do that now removes a
lot of the the arguments you would use to attend
something like E three, And in fact, I would think

(35:19):
that that's part of why Sony is like, yeah, let's
just skip this one. We don't have a console to announce.
We're not ready to talk about it yet. If we do,
we can do it on our own time, and we
can get all the headlines instead of fighting for the headlines.
That's the other aspect, right, you don't get lost in
the shuffle. Hey there, it's Jonathan from post interview with

(35:41):
Shannon Morris. Shannon and I have a lot more to
say about the E three experience and its relevance, but
before we get to that, it's time to take another
quick break. Hey, it's me again. We're going to rejoin
the interview I did with Shannon Morris, and we're gonna

(36:02):
pick up where we left off. She picks up about
the merits of attending an event like E three. I
would rather companies like that focus that insane budget that
you have. You you would normally have to pay E
three to even get a booth, and put it towards
your developers, or put it to towards the people, the
artists that are working on the game. Like I would

(36:22):
much rather than focus all of that money on the
video game, not going to this industry event just to
show off the game at at this one convention. Maybe
maybe create a production cycle for the game in a
way where you try to avoid the awful crunch time
as much as possible, so people aren't working, you know,

(36:45):
weeks and slowly dying or rapidly dying because we hear
those stories all the time too. I agree with you
on that as well. So what I think there, I
think I'm with you. I think the E three still
has a place. I think it almost needs to turn
into something more akin to what you see with packs right,

(37:07):
Like the Penny Arcade Expo is a totally fan focused
It is not industry. It's a place where video game
developers frequently will uh showcase games that are that are
not yet released and give people the chance to play them.
And the fact that it was designed first and foremost

(37:27):
as a fan facing event means that it runs more
smoothly in that context than E three would. So seeing
E three transformed like that might be useful. Um. I
think that a lot. The way the three goes now,
the way it continues, it almost seems like it's an

(37:47):
argument to keep the E s a relevant uh, which
that's the organization that throws E three, that the organizes
E three. The fact that they opened it up to
public tells me a lot about that. There's also been
a lot of a lot of like rumors and and
nasty news coming out like fighting within the EESA over

(38:08):
the last couple of years, that it doesn't make headlines
for most video game journals. I mean, there's some up there.
Polygon will always cover that kind of stuff, but a
lot of a lot of industry magazines haven't really covered it.
But the fact that there's been a lot of internal
drama at the organization that throws this also brings up

(38:28):
the question of relevance, or at least how healthy is
the event. Um. I would like to see it kind
of skew away from the trade side. The only thing
that makes me nervous about that is there are some developers,
some publishers, especially the Independence, that are pretty small and
they depend on E three for discovery. Uh. It tends

(38:51):
to be the stuff that doesn't necessarily make the big
stage at any of the press events, but people will
discover it on the floor and then it will generate. Uh.
The one I think about that I had not heard
about at all until I encountered it on the show
floor was Octo Dad, which was such a bizarre game,
such a weird game, and such a challenging and fun

(39:13):
concept and uh so different from everything else you were seeing.
It wasn't a shooter, it wasn't a racing game, it
wasn't a sports game. You were an octopus posing as
a human being who had pulled the wall over your
family's eyes, and you had to try and maneuver these
crazy limbs of yours. There's a phenomenal concept that I

(39:35):
don't think would have ever gotten the notice that it
did without its presence at E three. So in those
cases I get a little nervous because there's some actual
great work that otherwise wouldn't be discovered without E three.
The problem I see is that for all the other
bigger names out there, why not just have your own

(39:55):
event or have your own internet like based event where
it's not necessarily people coming to play the game, but
at least they get to see what the announcements are
um and it frees you up to not having to
worry about having this this external schedule where you may
or may not have anything to show, you know, and
it means that maybe Bethesda would get a break for

(40:19):
not having more Skyrim stuff to show off. For example,
you know the Elder Scroll stuff. Um, Yeah, everyone starts
yelling at companies when they have teased something and then
like a year goes by and you don't get an update.
And that's because the development cycle for video games has
grown to be longer than for a feature length film. Yes,

(40:41):
it's a very long time. And one one thing that
I did see from a lot of the companies that
I interviewed at E three was they did not have
news for us, Like they didn't announce anything new. They
were just giving us a few little updates here and there,
or talking to us about the technology and the game
like just sneezed. But as as it goes for you know,

(41:03):
release dates and when they're going to introduce ray tracing
and stuff like that, a lot of the companies just
couldn't share that information with us. So at those points,
I would much prefer that they just have their own
press event and share their event or share their news
at that event, as opposed to feeling, you know, kind
of stressed about E three or feeling like they're forced

(41:25):
to go through there, because I feel like some may
not necessarily be ready, and it would be a lot
more beneficial for those game developers to just you know,
do their announcements on their own terms as opposed to
having to do it at E three. But you make
a really really valid point when it comes to independence
independent games game manufacturers. You see this at like g

(41:48):
DC as well, Like they really really value those events
quite a bit because those are the only times that
you see a lot of press and journalists go out
and check out all these interesting things that they can
find on the show floor. You see the same thing
at CS to like some of the biggest hits are
just the worst, random and weirdest things. But indie game
manufacturing definitely does rely on those kind of events. So

(42:11):
maybe E three, instead of trying to focus on trying
to get this middle ground of we're going to be
a public conference as well as E three expo for industry,
do one or the other, like do g d C
or do games Com slash packs, but stop trying to
confuse everybody and stick them both into the same venue
space which is way too small for everybody. Yeah, or

(42:33):
if you're gonna be E three, then focus, maybe change
your focus to be on things like the smaller developers,
the independent developers, so that those are the focus, because again,
the big companies they're pulling out anyway. So if they're
pulling out anyway, then change the thrust of your show. Two.

(42:55):
Put these other ones on a pestle, even if they
were too, to separate out the event more where you
have kind of like C e S where you have
the press days before the actual show floor opens. Now, granted,
on those days you're not typically touring the show floor
because those booths are still rapidly being put the duct

(43:16):
tape and spit and everything. If you've ever been to
c S before the show floor officially opened, you've seen
people just frantically trying to get a booth in shape.
Um all everything happens all the way up to and
including when the doors open on that first day, so
there's not much for you to be able to actually do.
But if they were to divide up the show so
that they said, all right, let's say it's gonna be

(43:38):
a three day event, and day one is going to
be treated like it's a full open day, but it's
just press. It's just press an industry, and that's it.
So one day you get the normal sort of pre
public E three experience, and then after that you make
it the public event. It's still hard to do because

(43:59):
you still are working within the same facility, So it's
not like you can magically make the booths, you know,
change in modular form. Yeah, they don't get larger, better
traffic flow, but at the at the very least you
can at you can, which they sort of did this
past year. It sounds like with the the one o'clock
opening time, you at least got the first half of
the day, but still that's that's limited. Um. I remember

(44:23):
one year I went to E three and I was
waiting in line with everybody else to get in because,
as far as I could tell, my badge just allowed
me in normal hours. But the person, one of the
security people working the line walked up and saw my
badge and they said, you know, you can go in
right now. I said what, The show floor doesn't open
for another like fifteen minutes. Said oh no, no, your
badge allows you to go in right now. All right,

(44:45):
So I walk in, but no one was no one
was ready to show anything. So it didn't like if
I had had an appointment, it would have been fine,
but I didn't have an appointment, so really I just
felt like I was an extra person in a giant convention.
Hall that looked lost because that who what I was.
I couldn't I couldn't actually do it. There weren't any
games to play or anything yet everyone was hurriedly setting

(45:06):
up their booths. So I do like that. I do
like that E three has the press hours or the
industry hours before the public comes in. UM. But it's
it feels like they the location in the physical space
is just big enough for industry. It doesn't feel like
it's big enough to be inviting the public in as

(45:27):
well as you know, regular attendees. UM. So I think
that it would be a lot better if they moved
to a larger venue to introduce a lot more people,
and to allow the boothmakers as well, to broaden how
large their boots are and how many games they're allowed
to you know, set up there. Yeah, my cats sitting
in a box. If it fits it sits Yes. I

(45:51):
remember I remember a year at E three where um,
I think it was it was probably which company was it.
I remember that there was one year where it was
this enormous booth and it looked amazing from the outside,
but it was also invitation only, and I did not
have an invitation, and so that was one of those
experiences too that gets frustrating, and that still happens as well,

(46:14):
where you have certain exhibitors who they do appointment only
uh showings, so you can't just walk up and play stuff.
So there's also that experience which can be a negative one.
If you bought a ticket to go and then you're like, well,
I can't even play everything that's on here because I'm
not even allowed into that space. That ends up getting

(46:38):
across message across signal as well, right, because you're thinking
I bought a pass and now you're telling me that
the past is not good for what I want to do.
It feels like it almost feels like a bait and switch,
even though for those of us who have covered E
three for years, we know that's just the way certain
things work. That certain developers they're like, yeah, we we
will arrange ahead of time when you can come and

(47:00):
tour the booth, play the games, talk to developers. But
otherwise if you haven't done that, you're out of luck
because there's no walk ups. So that's also a challenge.
I agree with you, I think that really if they
want to have this public facing approach, which I understand
their reasoning, for doing so, they need to move to

(47:20):
a different venue. Uh, the I'm not sure that there
is one in Los Angeles that would really fit the bill.
The convention center is pretty big, but it's not big
enough for what they want to do. You would pretty
much have to go to someplace like Orlando, which has
enormous convention centers, or of course Las Vegas, known for
c e S. Even c e S has way outgrown

(47:43):
the convention center. They have the complete Sands Expo Center
is filled as well as the Las Vegas Convention Center.
And then there are plenty of hotels that host their
own booths and officially and otherwise that are connected to
c e S. So it's it's I don't know what
the solution is for them to go forward to this approach.

(48:05):
If I had my druthers, they would go straight to
the just trade industry route and say, let's scale it down.
Scaling down is not necessarily a bad thing if we
do it in the right way. They tried scaling down
a few years ago, but that was like a disaster
because it was kind of a such a drastic change
that nearly killed the event for all time. That's when

(48:26):
they turned it into kind of like it's all in
business suits and we're just going to talk code and
oh yeah, they took all the personality out. I mean, granted,
it had gotten to the point where it becomes sort
of a party con and it was hard to do business,
but they overcorrected when they tried to address it. Sounds
like it sounds like the separation between def Con and

(48:48):
black Hat. Def Con is the party con for hackers
while black Hat is the suits and tie convention for hackers. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
that's not a not a bad way of compared ring it.
It was one of those things where it was just
kind of getting out outrageous with things like booth babes
and all that kind of stuff, like the ridiculous over
the top trying to attract anyone into any booth that

(49:10):
they could switching over to well let's make this serious
because we're we're an industry event um, and then trying
to find some middle ground after that, which they did
for a while. Then the opening up to the public
change things again. So I think we both agree that
E three probably still has a place, but in its

(49:31):
current incarnation it is not fitting in well either as
an outreach to gamers or as an industry event for
people who are potentially going to carry games and stores,
although who the heck does that anymore? Or the press
covering it. Um, everything's online now digital now. So any

(49:55):
other observations you made this year at E three, anything
that particularly stood out to you before we conclude this
part of our episode. What was your about covered everything?
What was your favorite? Uh, definitely not the booth babes.
There were both babes there at a like some kind

(50:17):
of energy drink booth, which was very very unfortunate and
disappointing that they were there. Yeah, my favorite thing was
probably getting to play Borderlands too, and I did stand
in line for two hours to play that game. Uh
the blog day that I spent or Borderlands three. Yes,

(50:38):
Borderlands three, and it was incredible and so fun, and
they definitely made it worth it. They like had a
swag bag at the end of it, and they did
let you watch like a thirty minute demo of some
of the new characters and the new maps, so they
really made it something that was enjoyable. They even had
like streamers set up in little glass boxes along the

(51:00):
line so you could watch people streaming the game like
a bunch of twitch streamers while you're walking down the line,
so you can see, like, if you're a big fan
of twitch streamers, you could see some of your like
favorite celebs in these little glass boxes as if they
were like in a little human zoo playing twitch games.
So that was pretty cool. Well, I really like their booth.

(51:21):
It was fun the twitch streamers. I know, being put
into a zoo is not is not inappropriate, but these
are things of mine. So I'm going to be a
twitch streamer. I'm going to be a twitch streamer one
of these days. So I think I would be perfectly
fine if somebody stuck me in one of those little

(51:42):
class boxes and told me to play a video game
for two hours. Yeah, I was watching. I was watching
some of those twitch streams at the time too, and yeah,
and it was always interesting to see the the the
different approaches to that. Also, it's it's nice because you
see the agree, even the tacit agreement between publishers and

(52:02):
streamers about how that relationship is valuable to both parties.
Right that the streamers would not have a career where
it not for these games, and the games get an
incredible amount of uh publicity and support through the marketing
that's done by these streamers. I mean, you could argue
that games like Fortnite wouldn't be nearly the success that

(52:23):
they were without the streaming community. So it's nice to
see that that's one of those elements that has come
up since I started going to E three that I
think is um a positive. That's something that is also
kind of bridging that gap between industry and fan outreach.
But it is maybe they do just need to move

(52:44):
more towards that that route and just say, let's take
a more convention stance to this, but let's design it
like a convention. Maybe bring some people over who have
run those kind of events to redesign how E three works. Yeah,
that would be amazing. Well, Shannon, thank you so much

(53:06):
for joining us and telling us sort of your perspective
on E three. It was useful to talk to somebody
who actually went through it, and it was nice that
you've got a chance to compare it to the earlier
time when you went, when there was no public uh
entry into the convention at all, so you had a
chance to see it in both formats and kind of

(53:26):
weigh them against each other. That's useful tell people where
they can find all your stuffs. You can find all
of my stuffs. You can follow me on Twitter, that's
where I am most active. I am at snubs s
and U b s and I just started uploading a
ton of videos at my YouTube channel YouTube dot com
slash Shannon Morse, which is just my full name, really

(53:49):
easy to spell, which is where you can get tons
of tech vlogs and travel well tech reviews and travel vlogs.
That's what I should have said. So I do have
a bunch of videos going out over there. Um, I've
been very very active as well, so I really appreciate
the support that everybody has been showing by subscribing. Yep,

(54:09):
and uh, like I said, Shannon's awesome. You don't have
to take my word for it. Just go check out
her stuff and you'll you'll come to the same conclusion.
I mean, like, the evidence is all there. And you
can actually see my cat on the videos sometimes because
she does annoyingly like to come on set, even though
she was adorable. I I understand entirely. This is why
I can no longer record at home, because my dog

(54:30):
Tibolt would insert himself into He would yodel in the
background of every recording, because if I'm talking and it's
not to him, he is personally offended. So, Shannon, thank
you so much for joining the show. I can't wait
to have you back on. Thank you, Jonathan. It was
a pleasure as always, and I really appreciate it. Once again,
I want to thank Shannon for joining the show. And

(54:51):
that's our look at E three and whether or not
it's still relevant. I think you could come down on
either side of that debate. But I also think that
just about everyone would say that the event needs to
evolve a bit in order for it to meet whatever
goals it has set out for itself. It also needs
to define those goals. What is the purpose of E three.

(55:12):
It needs to be clear about that and to really
make certain that the execution of the plan is done
with those goals in mind, because as it stands right now,
it's not entirely clear what E three is supposed to be,
and therefore it's hard to say whether or not it's
being successful. Lots of people are going to it, but

(55:34):
is it actually achieving any goals. It's hard to say
if you don't know what the goals are. Well, we'll
see how this continues. I mean, there's no doubt that
E three will come back again. They've already secured the
Los Angeles Convention Center for twenty so I'm sure we
will have another one to talk about in that year.
But I do hope that the E s A is

(55:57):
is putting some real genuine thought into what E three
is and what it should be. And if that is
a fan centric event, that's fine, it just needs to
be designed like one. In the meantime, if you guys
have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, let
me know. You can send an email the addresses tech

(56:17):
Stuff at how stuff works dot com or pop on
by tech stuff podcast dot com. That's our website where
we have an archive of all of our previous episodes,
plus links to our social media accounts and to the
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the show and we greatly appreciate it, and I'll talk
to you again really soon. Y. Tech Stuff is a

(56:43):
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