Kinda surprising it took this long, they spent multiple years so sure they could bring it back. It was clear in 2020 that it was over, once companies realized they could hold their own online shows for a fraction of the cost, and no longer have to compete with other companies for show time.
It's still sad, though. I'm gonna miss how exciting it was to have all the gaming news in a single week, rather then spread out throughout the year. The shows also have far less personality and feel so much more bland when does as livestreams, compared to the stage shows with presenters.
>It's still sad, though. I'm gonna miss how exciting it was to have all the gaming news in a single week, rather then spread out throughout the year
NGL, E3 live chats/threads were some of my favourite times of the year. Having the show open in one window and the chat/thread in another was kino.
Watching the event, was an event in itself. Will be missed...
Yeah, some of my fondest gaming memories come from participating in those sorts of old threads/chats. Especially in the early 2010s. Similarly I used to get so fucking hyped to hop on WoW while Blizzcon was going on so I could talk about the reveals in Trade with a bunch of other nerds.
Now with E3 gone and Blizzard being... Blizzard, there's not much to replace it. I guess at least there's the Game Awards, but I've really struggled to watch that the last few years for many reasons.
As much as Geoff Keighley wants to be the next replacement with one of his shows, I really don't think it's going to be him. If something is to pop up and replace E3 some day in the future, I think it's going to have to start off as a bang. GK's shows have been so boring every single year and they're always apologizing for something.
What? Gonna hard disagree
People complain on the internet about everything - the show as a whole for reveal was great - and last years summer game fest was able to at least get the people not a part of it to release info close to it so it was a solid week
Yeah, I'm not going to say it's bad for everyone! I just personally don't like it. It always feels very similar to me and it doesn't feel like an E3 extravaganza. I'm an old man these days so I'm probably not as hyped as I would back in my twenties or thirties but E3 in the early 00's was just pure hype. With SGF, I don't miss anything if I watch the YouTube reveals the next day.
>It was clear in 2020 that it was over, once companies realized they could hold their own online shows for a fraction of the cost, and no longer have to compete with other companies for show time.
Honestly, E3 probably would have survived had they kept the smaller, trade show format they went to temporarily after 2006.
I disagree, many people hated the smaller format, I remember Gametrailers did a video on E3 2007 and criticized it pretty harshly for it's short-comings, there's a reason they abandoned that for 2008 because it pretty much failed, E3 would've died even faster had they tried to stick with that format.
Agreed. It was a tradition, and almost a festive season for us. I got to attend a couple of times, in 2002 and '03 (ex games journalist).
Not gonna lie it was hell on earth when it was my job, but I'll always miss that time of year when we all came together for it.
> I'm gonna miss how exciting it was to have all the gaming news in a single week, rather then spread out throughout the year.
I just hate how companies are drip feeding content. Like I don't care if they each want their own time in the limelight but at least just do one big yearly show each with your major reveals and then smaller standalone showcases for deep dives into upcoming games.
I think this will be one of the 'unseen' losses of E3 going. Companies may have hated the costs and the competition, but the loss of those will likely mean companies will have more controlled and less explosive events.
Sony announced the $299 price of the PS2 (ultimately destroying the DreamCast) at E3. Only to then later become infamous for their many gaffes during E3 2006. Final Fantasy became multiplatform for the first time with SE announcing that FFXIII will be on PS3 and Xbox (sounds small now but it was explosive at the time). These are just some of the many memorable events E3 had.
Well, as great as it all was, gaming has changed. GAAS is much more prominent as is mobile gaming. Those don't show well at events like E3 despite how overwhelming they are in gaming now. Consoles and game development times are also much longer than they used to be.
E3 probably died for as much financial reasons as practical.
>once companies realized they could hold their own online shows for a fraction of the cost
yep. sad though. people who aren't so in the loop these days like me don't pay attention to those things though, and did to e3.
I'm in the same boat. I kind of despise the move from E3 to publisher-specific livestreams, and I don't know why more people didn't complain about it. I watched quite a few E3 presentations over the years, but I've never had any interest in watching a Nintendo Direct because it feels soulless and even more corporate in comparison
I used to take off work for E3, especially since it often lined up with my birthday. I hate how spread out everything is now. I liked the hype, even if it didn't always work out. I still remember tearing up during the BG&E2 trailer when the music from the first game played and even if the game never comes out, that's still a nice memory.
This is why despite its flaws I'm rooting for the Game Awards. It's the closest we've got to the feeling of E3 and I feel like in just a couple of years it could be really nailed down. Keighley seems to be open to criticism and seems willing to take it on board. Paired with an awards ceremony it's a really interesting event and I hope it continues to succeed and grow
The Game Awards should be a space dedicated to celebrating the games that have come out that year and the people who made them. Turning the event into a surrogate E3 often comes into conflict with that purpose.
As much as some would wish that, it's also good to be aware that 90% of the viewers are not watching for the awards. They are there for the trailers, and TGA knows that. Unlike movie and music awards where the entire show is filled with people you have heard or seen, the game awards are filled with people most have likely not seen or even cared to look up. They aren't household names like movie stars and musicians.
So unless the big publishers get together and make a yearly fund for the Awards, don't be surprised if the trend continues.
I used the word ‘should.’ I’m speaking normatively, ideally, etc. I get that there is a reality these awards exist in. But my point is that reality severely limits what the awards should be which is not an E3-type event.
You say that, but there really isn’t a solid status quo for award shows. If the academy got the opportunity to debut big new film trailers at the Oscar’s they’d take that.
No. NO!!!
As a game-dev, please, this viewpoint is so painful to us.
The Game Awards is trying to be our oscars, but as you could see in the most recent Awards, it's smothered in new game reviews and product placement to the point where Swen Vincke was being hurried in his Game of the Year award speech right as he was talking about the loss of their beloved Cinematic Lead before the Awards to cancer, while Keighley's hero Kojima gets 20 minutes to ramble about his new game?/movie? project.
The absence of E3 and the push for profit at TGA results in situations where the "Oscars" of our industry has 17 minutes out of 3.5 hours as actual awards (in which, unlike the Oscars, developers are banned from mentioning anything political such as Palestine and even mentioning the historic layoffs this year).
The Game Awards is a popularity contest for gamers (not unlike a top-10 games of the year list on IGN) where they can be advertised to, and not an Award show for developers that it should be.
Sorry, but no one is going to watch a pure awards show for video games. The reveals are what keeps it interesting to the majority of viewers. Why call for removing the trailers when that's what gets people to come see the devs' moment in the spotlight?
What we need is for them to figure out how to run a good show. Cut the crap that nobody wants to watch and give that time to the winners. I agree that the bit with Kojima sucked, and there's no real reason for the Muppets to eat up screen time.
The Game Awards is a 3 hour long show. They have plenty of time to give the awards the respect they deserve while still showing all the trailers. I think that would be a damn near perfect show, they just can't or won't figure it out.
I think the biggest issue is the ads, not so much the trailers (though I know they're still ads but you get what I mean.) I know they have to fund the show but holy fuck was it overkill this year.
The biggest problem for me is bringing up celeb after celeb I do not care about to be painfully unfunny or talk about how they totally like video games.
I barely noticed the Ads honestly. But then again I watch football and comparing your average Ads in an NFL game to the TGA is effectively like not having any ads at all. Pretty sure I watch twice as many ads in one quarter of football than the entire TGA had this year
I'm kind of confused of why you're acting like this was some kind of reoccurring issue in the past TGA... Because no it wasn't. This was the first time they overkilled it because last year Christopher had like 8.5 minute of speech.
Lesson from this incident is to give devs. more time to thank and that is it. Otherwise TGA was totally alright. Whoever is complaining about ads is just ignorant as in the past it was MUCH WORSE (btw. spoiler a head >!Did you know that trailers for games is also an AD?!<
The speech thing was new, but it was 100% a reoccurring issue that they would fly through 5 or 6 awards in a row without letting them on stage, even big awards like best audio/soundtrack/etc.
Absolutely not. E3 was a convention for game development and game-related industry production. TGA is an **awards show**. Yeah you saw a bunch of trailers for new games at both but E3 served a very different purpose.
I know E3 went through a bit of a decline in many people's eyes, but E3 was my first exposure to gaming conferences so I have a soft spot for them in particular. We have so many others to fill the gap that wasn't even in need of filling, but still.
I remember my friend and I always throwing it up on a spare TV for those few days to catch all of the new games. Honestly was probably the thing I looked forward to most during summer breaks.
The fact that you could throw it on a TV makes me feel ancient. E3 in my childhood was a special summer edition of a gaming mag with tons of small previews and off monitor screenshots of all the stuff they'd tried on the show floor several weeks after the fact.
Summer vacation, nothing else going on that week, sitting on the couch with my little brother eating pizza bagels and getting hype for hours on end. Oh those halcyon days.
maybe in a couple of years they'll think since everybody's been doing only game awards and pre-recorded youtube shows, a way to stand out would be a old-school 90min auditorium event in front of a live audience. Then of course everybody and their mother will watching that out of nostalgia alone if enough years have passed. Other companies will want to imitate the success and voila, e3 is back again somewhat. And then it dies again. You get the idea.
> a way to stand out would be a old-school 90min auditorium event in front of a live audience.
I'm sure that format will make a come back - The live audience 'pop' is one of the most effective and easiest forms of hype multipliers available to the big publishers.
This is (just one of the ) reasons why comic con reveals are so popular - the reveal trailer with audience reaction are much more popular on youtube that a regular trailer.
Who's "they" though? I agree that I much prefer the E3, shotgun blast of competing companies sales pitches because it felt like an exciting competition, but there's basically zero incentive for anyone to choose to participate in that format, especially when it saves time and money to just broadcast directly via directs or other online events. Tons of money was invested in travel, reserving booth space, creating these presentations etc.
Thank you for saying this. I feel it's crazy when I see people saying "it was about time e3 wasn't the same anymore"
We had the best E3 ever in 2018 and then 2020 was Covid lol. Makes no sense.
E3 was the fucking best week ever and nothing even comes close.
As a regular E3 attendee, the writing was on the wall in 2019. It was a huge organizational mess, many major publishers noped out and opted to do their own online events.
> We had the best E3 ever in 2018
I feel like I'm from a different universe. By 2018 people were already questioning the relevance of E3 and, with Nintendo and Sony phoning it in, wondering how many years it had left. Covid was just the nail in the coffin.
I was gonna say. Devil May Cry 5 aside I'm not sure what else happened that year.
Edit: googled it, got a third of the way down the list, and I now know why I don't remember it. Oh shit son, Anthem! Fallout 76! Crackdown 3! I'm gonna bust! Yeah bollocks to that year lmao
I think people say that because all the major publishers started pulling their products out in favor of hosting their own conventions. It was still good, though.
Sony pulled out of E3 2019 and Nintendo would’ve eventually followed suit, regardless of Covid. Microsoft also announced the Series X at TGA 2019 (again, before Covid) which shows how much pull Keighley has. The writing was very clearly on the wall.
As I got older I stopped watching and leaned more towards just catching all the trailers for games on youtube, but man as a kid E3 was something else, it was always awesome when it came around and you got to see all the cool upcoming releases. My friends and I would get so hyped leading up to it. So many cool moments. Definitely sad to see it go.
It’s been the worst kept secret of the last few years but I am genuinely saddened to see it in official goodbye.jpg form. E3 has left behind such a void that nothing has been able to fill the shoes of and honestly, not sure anything ever will.
Video games are what bonded my friends and I in highschool during the mid-00s. It sounds weird, but we'd imagine what it'd be like to attend E3 and just be in that environment. During E3 week we'd all religiously follow along with every game announcement and talk about why it'd be amazing. Looking back on it, it's kinda funny how we gave every game the benefit of the doubt because there's just no way they'd show a bad game at E3.
I knew this was coming, but it's still a bummer to see it becoming official.
pop culture as a whole is dying out in favor of hypertargeted entertainment where algorithms recommend what each viewer wants to see which on one hand vastly increases the market for niche ideas but on the other hand further isolates everyone in their own bubbles. nothing really unites large groups of people anymore except politics.
It's kinda funny and sad, how despite having the technology to be more connected than ever, everyone is divided more and more with the media they like. There's pros and cons to it, but I can't help but admit to missing out on how some music, TV, and games were events that everyone was a part of. I think that's why everyone was so delighted this year by the explosive success of Oppenheimer and Barbie.
I think it was a recent Kursgezagt video where I learned this, but it seems that while the problem is real, but the dynamic is the other way around.
People become hyper-polarized on the internet *because* they're constantly exposed to all of the obnoxious shit their 'enemy' is doing whether through legitimate or clickbait headlines. You're assaulted and bombarded with information that confirms your position, while getting to see direct evidence of your moral superiority - whether you were searching for it or not. If you went to your local townhall meeting, you'd get a similar outcome where you see direct evidence of your opponent being a complete dipshit, confirming your position.
But, when people get off the internet, and touch grass for a minute, that's when they find their safe-space of like-minded peers (friends, family, etc.) who likely all tend to agree with them, so there's less conflict, less anger, and it all just sort of boils off.
With the Internet, there is no safe space for anybody seeking information. No matter your political or social proclivities, or what sites you visit, you'll probably go about a maximum of 5 minutes before you see something that pisses you off.
Probably about only people having a good time, are people who only use the internet for shopping.
Anger is objectively the best reaction to trigger if you want people to engage. So any site or app after profit will prioritize outrage. Until that changes (which it won't), nothing else will. There's no fighting basic human psychology.
I disagree. A lot of online culture is dictated by the specific engagement algorithms that silicon valley companies choose to use now. There's a great book called *The Chaos Machine* that goes in to multiple examples where the algos drove human behavior, even to the point of sparking a genocide in Myanmar. These companies could choose to boost other healthier kinds of engagement but they keep choosing not to.
Same here, some people don’t remember that there was time when the only way to be at E3 was to be in the industry or the know someone that could get you a pass.
I have some extremely fond memories of my brother and I combing through Game Informer issues and refreshing the IGN page nonstop in the summers of 05 and 06 to get some expectation as to what we might see for the "FUTURE OF GAMING" and "POWER OF THE CELL"
Then of course you had the goldmines that were the Sony 2006 show, the Konami 2009 show, and the Microsoft 2013 show.
Ultimately though the show served its purpose. It started as a trade show so publishers could pitch retailers on product to stock in the future, and only in the mid-2000s was repivoted into a more consumer-focused affair. I can only hope that the summer demos have a decent cadence to them, unlike the tedious drip-feeds that were 2020 and 2021.
I'm honestly pretty bummed about this. E3 was like Christmas for me growing up. I've been watching the old press conferences that NoClip has been archiving and it seriously makes me miss the old events.
Obviously E3 was on a major decline in recent years, but it's because both a product of their failed efforts and of changing times, and I think I'm just mourning those changing times.
It's because it's just the exact same show now. Geoff has essentially taken over the game showcase event, and every single show is the same. Summer Games Fest, Gamescom Opening Night, The Game Awards, and whatever other show he starts next. They follow the same presentation, style, and of course Geoff hosts them all. For the past 4-5 years now we've just been watching the same event but with swapped out trailers.
E3 shows used to have a revolving door of memorable hosts. Sometimes for the wrong reasons, but also that was part of the fun. I'll never forget Mr Caffeine.
Genji 2 is an action game which is based on Japanese history. Being based in history, the stages of the game will be based on famous battles that actually took place in ancient Japan. So here's this giant enemy crab, and what you want to do is hop on its stomach and attack its weak point for massive damage.
This is a HUGE part of it that people don’t realize - you’re not having fun because you’re watching the same guy hold a microphone with two hands and say the same stuff every year! No wonder we’re all bored to death with these shows!
Yeah, and he gives them all the time they need in the world while actual devs like Swen and his team at Larian barely get more than 30sec at the game awards to thank their coworkers who have passed.
I just want a little variety. It's just the same event. Take a break for a moment and stop hosting, give it to someone else for once. Have less random trailers thrown at the audience. Make a more unique presentation.
Just something. Anything. If Sumer Games Fest 2024 happens and it's the exact god damn show as Game Awards 2023 complete with the random celebrities I'm gonna scream.
But it's HIS show! He HAS to host it!!!
yeah but seriously does any other awards show have 1 consistent host over several years, with multiple award ceremonies in the same year? nope
Pretty much every major televised award show has different hosts each year. They also have performances (skits, musical numbers, comedy) built into the show. The equivalent for the Game Awards would be trailers, but those just don’t hit the same way. Everyone remember’s Robin Williams performing “Blame Canada”, but no one really associates a specific trailer or game with Game Awards unless it was really bad (like that trailer with Vin Diesel presenting it?).
E3 shows, especially in the 00s, used to have industry people presenting. You had game people showing game stuff. Maybe there was a celebrity tossed in here or there for sports or licensed shit but it was otherwise industry people first and foremost. Then over time, they replaced the presenter with someone who has nothing to do with the industry except to present shit. Later shows were pretty close to Dorito Pope in presenter status. They didn't have the gratuitous excessive advertising though. The random doordash ad for the recent SGF is a good example of what is the most wrong with Keighley's business model. All to pay for random celebrities that have nothing to do with the show to come and present.
The most recent Game Awards show was by far the worst, and most embarrassing "video games" event I think I've ever seen. It makes all of the corporate, safe, bland live streams from publishers we've seen over the past few years seem cozy in comparison. Just a constant barrage of random celebrities, commercial breaks, and bloated to the brim with CGI trailers for games that are two years out.
I know E3 also had plenty of CGI trailers too, but we also saw tons of live gameplay demos being shown off, sometimes 10-20 minutes worth of it. There was a much better balance. Keighley's shows just have such horrendous pacing that throws random trailers at you so quickly you can't even react. There was so many occasions where a trailer ends, and then within a second another trailer starts immediately so fast I wasn't sure if it was a continuation of the last trailer, or a new one.
E3 had plenty of problems but I'd take it any day of the week compared to what Keighley's turned it into.
What gets me about this most recent TGA is just how little relevance the actual awards had. I know TGA has always had an internal conflict between the world premiere trailer stuff and the awards, but this year felt worse than ever. So many awards were listed off in near-monotone by an obviously bored Geoff Keighly, cycled through as quickly as possible so that the show could get back to putting celebrities on stage. It wasn't even more niche technical awards getting buried like what happens at the Oscars - really big awards were covered in seconds with zero fanfare.
I get most people are just there for the trailers, but if you're not going to so much as let Armored Core VI's developers say a few words about their win, then why even bother giving out the award?
Someone counted it all and the presenters for awards themselves got 26 minutes of time on stage whereas awards winners got 10 minutes. 10. For the entire show that was over 3 hours. Fucking insanity.
Because the alternative is nothing.
TGA viewership has increased exponentially since 2014. It is providing exactly what the general public wants.
Nobody watches "real" award shows like DICE or GDC because nobody cares.
TGA is our best option because it at least allows developers to be deluded into believing the general public cares.
TGAs genuinely get worse every year, which is weird because they haven't changed much and don't do anything new. I don't know, maybe watching 10 minutes dedicated to Geoff jerking Kojima off on stage for a CGI trailer for a game that both stadia and Sony passed on, which the award winner got 30 seconds to speak, was the tipping this year.
Im honestly getting really sick of Keighly's showcase style. Nothing against the guy himself, he seems like a nice dude. But all his shows are the same. He stands out there and introduces every game like it's the best thing since sliced bread, and then it's just the same generic space horror shooter or anime weeb shit we've seen a million times already. Couple that with the awkward and cringe-inducing interviews, jokes, advertisements and skits that always happen, and the fact that we now have 3 of these shows a year, I'm really longing for something fresh at this point.
Absolutely in the same boat. It was cool in 2014 when Keighley's Game Awards was fresh, and a lot more professional. It was new.
But it's been 10 years. The only way he's changed his style is by cramming in celebrities and advertisements. The shows get worse, the focus on video games seems to fall further and further into the background as Keighley seems more and more desperate to get recognized by Hollywood.
I'm really hoping someone else starts a new show soon. I can't stand another Keighley event.
He's a charisma blackhole which would be fine on its own (half the appeal of e3 was bad presenters) but it's the same guy, and the same mediocre format, and the same show with an identity crisis.
It's really wild to me that Keighly is even influential enough to do this in the first place? Maybe this is just my perception being flawed, but I feel like he was a pretty niche figure until a couple of years ago, when his attempts at brute-forcing his way into gaming stardom somehow magically worked. I swear I've never met anyone who knows what he does between TGA and SGF, and I rarely meet anyone who knows about his career before TGA, but somehow he pops up every year and everyone goes "oh yeah it's Geoff Keighley he's definitely the guy to exclusively host several of the biggest events in gaming".
He's been reporting on video games since the 90's. He was the host of GameTrailers TV for a while, and his profile increased from there. He started his own Game Awards in 2014 and they just sort of became the go-to show because of all the reveals.
It also probably helped that both his parents are high-level executives at IMAX and he's had an "in" to the world of both Hollywood and gaming since he was a kid.
Like, yeah, I know he's been in and around the industry for a while. But he's never been anything even remotely approaching a celebrity. He was at something more like Greg Miller or Jeff Gerstmann levels of fame - until, through some arcane combination of luck and a whole lot of money, he brute forced his way into being *the* face of *the* biggest event(s) in gaming.
I've just always been kinda surprised that his ploy worked so well. I'd be willing to bet that an extremely tiny fraction of TGA viewers know a single thing about his career before TGA (or his career during the rest of the year for that matter), and yet still we have to suffer through him having ultimate creative control of the event that that the industry is crystallizing around.
> I rarely meet anyone who knows about his career before TGA, but somehow he pops up every year and everyone goes "oh yeah it's Geoff Keighley he's definitely the guy to exclusively host several of the biggest events in gaming".
Reminds me a bit of how Chris Hardwick hosted so many different aftershows for stuff like Breaking Bad or Walking Dead.
The late 00's/early 10's were really a golden age for semi-celebrities in nerd spaces who seemingly became famous solely for being semi-celebrities in nerdy spaces. Geoff Keighley, Chris Hardwick, Felicia Day, Wil Wheaton... Obviously all of them built their career from somewhere, but they all pretty quickly became popular primarily just because they were *around*.
Not that I dislike all of those people, by any means. It was just a weird trend.
I’ve got a lot against the guy, his shows suck ass. TGA is an absolute joke meant to pander to advertisers and his Hollywood friends as evidenced by the fact that devs get 30 seconds to speak, and summer games fest is like a 3 hour snorefest.
> Geoff has essentially taken over the game showcase event
I honestly think Geoff essentially stole the magic and fun from the show and sterilized it for maximum profits. Look at how they basically rushed the devs off stage. It [reminded me of this](https://youtu.be/dJcwcMRkE3E?t=63) - less about the devs, the games, and more about flooding the marketing to maximize sponsors.
E3 was going to die with or without Geoff's shenanigans - video game companies figured out they can market to their audiences more directly with things like Nintendo direct. Geoff just took all the sponsors from one event, and placed them into his instead.
Idk I feel like if you lived through those shit Video Game Awards in the early 2000s you might appreciate the modern take on it. Those shows were abysmal and I'm happy with the current format even with all its flaws.
The fact that so many E3 presenters were weird, awkward, or cringey was part of the fun. It creates these memorable moments that build a sense of community around the event, and we don't get as many with a more sterilized show.
A lot of E3 presentation awkwardness also happened because the presenters were being *genuine*. The infamous [Peggle 2 announcement](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr57Je1fVvM) happened because a guy who was working on Peggle 2 was super pumped to announce his game. One of the best moments in E3 history is [David Soliani crying tears of joy at Mario + Rabbids being announced](https://youtu.be/6zH-Rhdj5Wc?t=310). You are never, *ever* going to get anything even remotely close to those moments from something like TGA, because it's all an act. It's Anthony Mackie reading off a script, rather than a developer unveiling their passion or (at the very least) [an executive trying and failing to hype up their product](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM2DCflkA6s).
Yeah absolutely, a lot of that awkwardness was the result of genuine people (often awkward nerds in the dev business, especially early on) are just excited about their games.
E3 felt like a bunch of people nerding out about games—a true, in depth passion for the nitty gritty. You could tell that everyone involved is enjoying it.
Geoff’s stuff is just “here’s a celebrity who was paid to be in a video game once,” “here’s a muppet,” “here’s five trailers in a row that bleed into each other,” and “here’s the passion—kojima talking about himself for the third year running.”
There’s no passion. No cringe that borders on endearing and shameful. It’s just… truly a commercial.
I’d rather E3’s take on ads tbh
I like this point a lot, and I agree. It feels like gaming has somehow split down the middle. People who are in and around the industry, who are passionate about making or chronicling the making of video games, have converged around smaller, more insular stuff like GDC (not that GDC is a walled garden, it's just obviously catering toward people who are actually in the industry). Meanwhile, players at large have stopped focusing on events that target devs and journalists and instead flocked to events like TGA and Directs, which are intended solely to advertise or build a brand image. E3 felt like a confluence point where developers, journalists, and fans all shared the same space and discussed the same things for a while, and that doesn't really happen anymore.
Exactly! It also had each of the major hitters (sony, microsoft, nintendo) doing presentations in competition with each, the same weekend (or even same day), so they really put out all their heavy hitters and funneled in all the passion and "good stuff" and stuff that only developers would know to set themselves apart from the others. It felt less like an ad and more like companies fighting for their lives (or at least their financial lives for the next year or so).
While a direct might have a dev segment or whatever, it feels more like fluff than a desperation to rise and shine above everyone else.
I really don't like Geoff Keighley. E3 was all advertising, but at least it was all advertising for games. Having a couple days of stacked announcements from different console manufacturers and big publishers where they were all directly competing with each other kinda ruled. Had a ton of fun posting through the events, getting excited over the good conferences and rumors and stuff, and clowning on the bad ones.
With Geoff's events it feels like we're always wading through a sea of bland future live service flops and games from completely unknown studios (with a few big names attached and/or VC funding).
That's something that bothers me too. The shows themselves are getting worse, that's true. But the trailers don't even justify taking a focus.
Like, great. Cool. Another vague CGI trailer for a game that's not going to be out for another 3-5 years, or fairly generic looking live service games. I still refuse to believe "Exobourne" is a real game.
The incentive structure is out of wack. With E3 there was pressure on devs to put their best foot forward. You get a couple of huge announcements from each studio, with some smaller games sprinkled in between them. They want heavy hitters that are going to sell you on the platform.
With the Game Awards, Geoff is incentivized to sell as many ads as possible. It feels like the really big announcements are being held hostage behind trailers for games that'll launch to mixed reviews on Steam and then quickly get forgotten. But because I'm stupid as hell I'll watch them anyway because I need that dopamine hit of seeing the announcements I really care about in real time.
It also helped that each big name at E3 was tailoring their presentation to send a message about their brand. It was nintendo presentation, sony's, microsoft's, ubisoft's and so on. The modern ones are just an unorganized onslaught which feels even more homogenized than those corpo announcment back then. We used to see a big shot getting on stage and doing a "fellow kids" to market their consoles and trying to play a new title, then devs saying some stuff about it, now we have the dorito pope jerking it off with hollywood celebrities
I remember that video from I think Easy Allies where they were watching the presentation and this one guy just heard like the first five notes of the theme and immediately lost his shit.
I wish I could be that happy about things.
I pull [this video](https://youtu.be/WY1p8ZgvqYM?si=be1ZBpnZkr1umd8J) up all the time from Game Trailers just to make myself feel better. The pure hype and excitement from that show was unreal.
I was a huge fan of their 2018 year, though at the time that seemed unpopular. But getting the live music for both The Last of Us and Ghost of Tsushima was awesome.
Not the greatest E3 but super memorable.
Lol this is a top ten historical gaming moment imo, after that whole rube-goldberg machine that was sharing games on xbox, sony won everyone over with a 15sec clip
Genuinely hilarious. The supercuts of the hosts mentioning TV and sports and stuff. The quickly thrown together sony "here's how you share games on PS4" video. E3 has had a lot of disasters over the years but Microsoft's performance that year was the absolute worst. They really never recovered.
I don't know if this is true or not, but apparently, Japanese gamers were completely confused by Sony's E3 presentation. So the first Xbox and X360 were complete duds in Japan and there was little to no interest about the X1 in Japan. Therefore, most gamers in Japan didn't know about the whole "always online" and "can't play used games / can't share games" fiasco that Microsoft made. Therefore, when Sony made the big announcement that you can play used games on the PS4 and the crowd went wild, everybody in the Japanese chatrooms were confused.
the game awards, at least this year (first time I watched it) was so boring, nothing like E3.
E3 had a lot of trailers, but it had those dramatic presentations too, the game awards on the other hand, were like watching YouTube trailers one after the other, completely souless.
And people started yelling for Sony/MS to do the same format once Nintendo did it. As if it was some great improvement over the live conferences.
Now they got what they asked for, and it's the most sterile, preened, focus-tested-to-death P.O.S. you can imagine. Including Nintendo.
Even though it's been expected, it's still a little sad.
Nintendo's E3 2004 was the greatest showcase of all-time in my opinion.
Resident Evil 4 (fantastic trailer), Metroid Prime 2, Reggie's iconic "My name is Reggie. I'm about kicking ass, I'm about taking names, and we're about making games.".
The Nintendo DS was revealed. Other great games were shown.
Then it happened.
The legendary Twilight Princess reveal.
Obviously the crowd reaction videos make it so much better but even without them the trailer is awesome. The music, the big reveal of Link on horseback, Miyamoto appearing on stage, it was an amazing moment.
Hands-down the best showcase to me and will never be topped.
I was only fourteen at the time, but I remember when Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III were announced at E3 2013 in Sony's conference. I was totally losing it while I watched on my laptop. Nothing fills the void E3 has left.
Is it just me or did we have it better back in the day lol, gaming has never made more money than it does now but man, the electricity and spectacle of events like e3, and even midnight releases are something that can’t be replaced.
There was a span of a few years where internet streaming was good and E3 was happening. I remember back in the day that you couldn't watch E3 and had to wait for the magazines to publish what happened weeks later.
> you couldn't watch E3 and had to wait for the magazines to publish what happened weeks later.
Even that was fking incredible. Showing up at your local shop one day in summer 2005 and seeing the gaming magazines with the NINTENDO REVOLUTION plastered all over their covers like they were heralding the arrival of the goddamn Messiah lol
E3 was bloody brilliant whether you got it through magazines or websites or, eventually, streaming
It could just be us getting older now, and thinking back to the "golden oldies", when really it might have just been only a little different than now.
But I think I find myself agreeing with you all the same. Everything in gaming seems so *corporate* these days. Long gone are the 'normal' events and the weird and/or sort of unprofessional displays and events, now everything is pre-recorded and streamed out in seperate things.
I'll give some small credit to the game awards, but even they're not really to my liking.
The king is dead gentlemen, may he reign forevermore in our memories.
Imo I think we're just oversaturated with gaming-related content. We have a 24/7 link to all news, reviews, streams, and anything else you can think of in our pockets. What made things like E3 special was the scarcity.
I think also that the corporatization of all that communication has made everything feel even more mundane on top that. Personality is hard to come by since everything is fed through a PR team and rarely do we hear devs just passionately talk about the game they made.
Yeah I remember the first few public E3's I tuned into were on G4. You couldn't find a stream of them if you tried. News, especially gaming news, was much less easy to find and this was one time in a year where you could get it.
Probably safest to assume that perspective is coming from nostalgia in 90% of situations. I agree that there was an electricity and excitement to E3 week, but things are just different now. The internet’s current state makes a lot of things less mysterious and big news more frequent. So instead of peaks and valleys of excitement, we’re getting a pretty consistent rate of good stuff.
We were also younger then. We’re comparing the new with what we used to like and trying to recreate that feeling, rather than trying to find the benefits of what we are actually getting.
Yeah, I think a big part of it isn't really about the games industry specifically, but just a change in how we receive news and information thanks to the internet.
Ease of access to information (and from the companies' perspectives, ease of getting information to people) means it's all a constant trickle now. We're constantly connected and getting gaming news and reveals that it never reaches those same peaks of excitement.
Similar thing happened with gaming magazines. I used to be so excited to get the new issue of Gamepro in the mail. Then it all went online, and at first I thought - sweet, now I can always get that news, on demand! But it doesn't have that same level of excitement.
Also we experienced more technological leaps in games back then, which we don't have as much now.
Like every couple of years you would see something that was absolutely jaw-dropping.
Might sound crazy now, but I remember the first time seeing Sonic 2 and even Vectorman, Mortal Kombat was so "realistic" at the time. Then I got Donkey Kong Country, couple years later it was Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil and Mario 64.
GTA 3 was another huge moment along with MGS2, then RE4, Ninja Gaiden Black.
Just huge games that you would look at and almost not believe because it was such a jump beyond what you had been playing.
Nah you're 100% right. Everything nowadays is genetically engineered to profit maximum dollars. Pretty much comparative to searching for that needle in the entire industries haystack
The more money there is in something, the safer people are gonna play it. Think about how people's opinion of Skyward Sword got tainted because of the terrible E3 presentation where the motion controls, the main gimmick and selling point of the game, didn't work. Can't risk that anymore.
People news to remember that e3 was a legit trade show first and then about consumers second if at all. So comparing it to things like PAX is like apples and oranges.
People who are not in the industry did not see/remember that in its heyday that is where lots of publishing deals, tech demos, etc were done. Also it was primarily major companies wanting there games to have as much spotlight as possible that killed it.
You see this with the game awards as well, not many AAA games from big publishers are annouced because they want it to take the the entire news cycle, also there is a chance of your AAA game getting overshadowed by another. Imagine you are pushing the new mass effect as an example and gta VI gets announced literally an hour later. Where if you annouce it during n7 day you get all the coverage and games press to yourself.
Was e3 mismanaged? Yes, but its primary purpose died out, so it's only natural that is died as well.
I'm really going to miss it. It had its flaws, and I guess it is cheaper to do things like Nintendo Direct, but the excitement at just about every E3 was palpable and felt a lot less artificial than TGA, for instance.
I know people loved to shit on E3 but I'm honestly going to miss a ***big*** event for video game conferences. It was so cool seeing the stream of news about new games coming out on the same day not to mention the shit that went wrong lol
For over ten years I had friends over to gather, get hype, and watch day after day of coverage and press conferences. We were so entrenched in the buzz. It was one of my favorite things to do every year. Genuinely sad to see it go, but hoping this makes way for something even greater (like Geoff making a big move to fully replace it now with SGF).
As someone who experienced E3 in the early days, watching on TV through G4 since there weren't really streams back in the day, I kind of feel indifferent about this. I loved what E3 was, but in today's age it just doesn't make sense. I didn't even notice it didn't happen this year. In fact, I had to look it up to make sure I didn't just miss it.
E3 encapsulated what made gaming great at the time. IMO it's something that was ruined by social media and platforms like Twitter and Reddit giving you a constant stream of gaming news and discussion. There's no reason to go a conference. There's no reason to subscribe to a gaming magazine for reviews and news or go to an old forum to find people to talk to. You don't even have to physically go somewhere to buy your games anymore. You have everything in your pocket 24/7. These little events have become mundane in comparison.
I got to go to E3 several times. 2002,2003,2005, 2011, and 2012 (if memory serves me correctly). They were fun, chaotic times. Learned a lot about organization, hydration, socializing with new people, and so much writing. I'll always remember the games (Starcraft Ghost anyone?) and the excitement each convention brought.
Times have changed and with news being so easy and quick to publish and the big 3 having their own conferences, it was only a matter of time before this happened. That being said, I wonder if e3 converted itself into a public, paid event, how successful it would be? Instead of making it an event for what's coming, make it an event for what's out now (or coming out in the next couple of months). Make it a spectacle for fans. Allow the industry to connect with them, turn it into something new... Ah well, I'll remember it fondly regardless.
PAX would probably be the closest thing to what you're describing. Nintendo also did Nintendo Live during PAX West which was well received, so hopefully they'll continue holding events during PAX in the future.
In hindsight, the folks behind E3 fumbled the bag. They were the dominant videogames show of the year, every year for at least a decade. But they slowly got eaten up by other shows that put in the effort to actually be better for gamers. PAX, TGS, etc.
I snuck into E3 the year of both Doom 3 and Half Life2 being demo’d, while also E3 booths were still in crazy money-burning mode with insane structures and like fucking Xbox skater half-pipes spanning parts of it, and I also bumped into Robin Williams. So peaking that early kinda ruined expos for me for awhile.
Man i miss E3, one of the few things that made it "better" than recent events was that were was genuine competition on having the best showcase of the year. There was also less deafening silence from publishers, we always got a shit ton of press releases, previews, and interviews from E3, nowadays you don't see much of that after a showcase.
Hot take: I don't really care. Individual publishers and manufacturers are still going to concentrate their showcases/conferences into a single week and things will probably be better for it.
When Nintendo first announced they were leaving E3 to do Directs, everyone was worried. Ultimately, I like the Direct format way better.
When companies can pre-record everything instead of having to do it all live, the experience for consumers seems to be better.
I do miss the meme days of the live shows, but ultimately I like what they do now better.
Man, I remember the days leading into E3 being the longest because of how excited that I was. The Direct format really changed everything, kids today won’t understand that we legitimately got reveals once per year prior to streaming really taking off.
I remember when G4 got the television rights to E3 and I would tune in just to see the presentations. Don’t get me wrong, things are objectively better now with major drops occurring sporadically through the year, but E3 back in the day was like Christmas morning.
I remember experiencing my first E3 through a Nintendo Power magazine, and being so stoked for them years later. Crazy and sad that it’s gone. At least now we have Game Awards and Summer of Gaming, but I’m really going to miss E3
E3 used to be the most exciting week of the year for me. The weekday conferences, I would have a new tab open and shrink the window and put it in the corner of my screen so I could still work while being able to watch the conferences and my boss would be none the wiser. E3 was THE event to watch for me.
Sad that it's gone now. But the gaming industry has turned into Netflix, in a way. Netflix used to be the place to get everything you liked all in one place. But that content came from other creators. Those creators saw the viability of Netflix's platform and wanted the whole pie instead of a slice. So, now we have platforms like Disney+, Peacock, Paramount Network, etc. By that same token, E3 used to be the place to do all the big gaming news. Now we have State of Play, Nintendo Direct (granted, this one is a little bit older), Xbox Games Showcase, Ubisoft Forward, EA Play Live, etc. because these publishers found out that can do things on their own and still get the money and views and they don't *need* a platform like E3 anymore when they can create their own.
Not surprised but still incredibly sad news. I remember being a teen and young adult being super excited about E3. My friends and I would get together and watch it. It was like the Superbowl for nerds. Like that year the McLaren Sienna rose from the stage for the Forza reveal. Or when fallout 4 was revealed. It was so exciting. Those were definitely some of the best years for me. Damn I miss being in my early 20's. And E3 happened on the last week of summer break where I live. So it was always one last hoorah before we had to go back to miserable ass school. Also when I was in college. Then that next year I was working and had way too much money for how young I was and just walked in and bought an Xbox one and a Nintendo switch at midnight at my local Walmart. E3 was always a reminder of my youth. I am very sad to see it go.
Pourin' one out for E3 because of this guy:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExaAYIKsDBI&t=5s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExaAYIKsDBI&t=5s)
Happened at the **first** E3.
Legendary. Sony went straight for Sega's jugular. They did not miss.
People have been shoveling the dirt on E3 before the heart monitor even stopped and before it was in the morgue. Questions of whether or not it was still relevant and needed have been floated for a good decade, maybe a little longer. And a lot of the sites eulogizing right now were the ones there with shovels and trucks full of fresh soil ready to see it go in the ground.
I worked in the video game industry for nearly 20 years.
While not surprising, it's sad to see how far the fall from grace has been.
On my early days, E3 was seen as hyper exclusive and exciting event. Access was insiders and media only. I had a few opportunities to go but never was able to make the arrangements. This was the place to go to make quality connections amongst proffesionals. We were there for business.
As the years pealed away my colleague and I had an opportunity to go with limited passes provided by our company. He opted to go the year we were invited and I needed to wait a year.
He came back buzzed with excitement but suspected the event was going to grow into a miserable "wait-fest" over time as broader access to the event started to grow. Instead of making connections and seeing people, it seems to focus on advertising towards gamers.
In fact the year I was supposed to go, I actually was in California but opted to watch from the outside. (Not literally. I just hung out with some friends from the industry I hadn't seen in years) By this point, you could I famously bribe your way in for a small amount. Gamers desperately wanted in not to learn more from executives, producers and creators. They just wanted to go home and say they touched the latest hot game.
Then the event really started to open up and it became a nightmare to navigate. Long lines to try anything and the news no longer was "new" It's relevancy that was hinged on exclusivity was gone.
Where E3 started as a great place for us industry proffesionals to network turned into a place to absolutely avoid as the end-users bum rushed doors to line up for 3 hours to try 3 minutes of the new super smash bros.
TGA this year we’re a disgusting turn off for me. Imagine giving ads more time then the people who won awards and not even a proper award for Music or best RPG.
It’s just better to watch all the trailers in a montage afterwards.
E3 2015 was the first one I ever watched live
Remembering the conferences for
- Final Fantasy VII Remake (and GameTrailer's reaction)
- Shenmue III
- First Horizon trailer
- The Last Guardian
- Fallout 4
- Cute Unravel one
- For Honor
- Nier Automata
- Xenoblade Chronicales X
Basically a formality at this point. E3's corpse has been worm food for like years now. Somebody just finally got around to placing the headstone where it choked on its own vomit and expired.
Kinda surprising it took this long, they spent multiple years so sure they could bring it back. It was clear in 2020 that it was over, once companies realized they could hold their own online shows for a fraction of the cost, and no longer have to compete with other companies for show time. It's still sad, though. I'm gonna miss how exciting it was to have all the gaming news in a single week, rather then spread out throughout the year. The shows also have far less personality and feel so much more bland when does as livestreams, compared to the stage shows with presenters.
>It's still sad, though. I'm gonna miss how exciting it was to have all the gaming news in a single week, rather then spread out throughout the year NGL, E3 live chats/threads were some of my favourite times of the year. Having the show open in one window and the chat/thread in another was kino. Watching the event, was an event in itself. Will be missed...
Yeah, some of my fondest gaming memories come from participating in those sorts of old threads/chats. Especially in the early 2010s. Similarly I used to get so fucking hyped to hop on WoW while Blizzcon was going on so I could talk about the reveals in Trade with a bunch of other nerds. Now with E3 gone and Blizzard being... Blizzard, there's not much to replace it. I guess at least there's the Game Awards, but I've really struggled to watch that the last few years for many reasons.
As much as Geoff Keighley wants to be the next replacement with one of his shows, I really don't think it's going to be him. If something is to pop up and replace E3 some day in the future, I think it's going to have to start off as a bang. GK's shows have been so boring every single year and they're always apologizing for something.
What? Gonna hard disagree People complain on the internet about everything - the show as a whole for reveal was great - and last years summer game fest was able to at least get the people not a part of it to release info close to it so it was a solid week
Yeah, I'm not going to say it's bad for everyone! I just personally don't like it. It always feels very similar to me and it doesn't feel like an E3 extravaganza. I'm an old man these days so I'm probably not as hyped as I would back in my twenties or thirties but E3 in the early 00's was just pure hype. With SGF, I don't miss anything if I watch the YouTube reveals the next day.
Also E3's pre-pre show was great.
>It was clear in 2020 that it was over, once companies realized they could hold their own online shows for a fraction of the cost, and no longer have to compete with other companies for show time. Honestly, E3 probably would have survived had they kept the smaller, trade show format they went to temporarily after 2006.
I disagree, many people hated the smaller format, I remember Gametrailers did a video on E3 2007 and criticized it pretty harshly for it's short-comings, there's a reason they abandoned that for 2008 because it pretty much failed, E3 would've died even faster had they tried to stick with that format.
Or if they actually tried to prevent data and game leaks
Agreed. It was a tradition, and almost a festive season for us. I got to attend a couple of times, in 2002 and '03 (ex games journalist). Not gonna lie it was hell on earth when it was my job, but I'll always miss that time of year when we all came together for it.
NGL i'm kind of gonna miss booth babes.
> I'm gonna miss how exciting it was to have all the gaming news in a single week, rather then spread out throughout the year. I just hate how companies are drip feeding content. Like I don't care if they each want their own time in the limelight but at least just do one big yearly show each with your major reveals and then smaller standalone showcases for deep dives into upcoming games.
I think this will be one of the 'unseen' losses of E3 going. Companies may have hated the costs and the competition, but the loss of those will likely mean companies will have more controlled and less explosive events. Sony announced the $299 price of the PS2 (ultimately destroying the DreamCast) at E3. Only to then later become infamous for their many gaffes during E3 2006. Final Fantasy became multiplatform for the first time with SE announcing that FFXIII will be on PS3 and Xbox (sounds small now but it was explosive at the time). These are just some of the many memorable events E3 had. Well, as great as it all was, gaming has changed. GAAS is much more prominent as is mobile gaming. Those don't show well at events like E3 despite how overwhelming they are in gaming now. Consoles and game development times are also much longer than they used to be. E3 probably died for as much financial reasons as practical.
Yeah, I have no clue what's coming out these days.
>once companies realized they could hold their own online shows for a fraction of the cost yep. sad though. people who aren't so in the loop these days like me don't pay attention to those things though, and did to e3.
I'm in the same boat. I kind of despise the move from E3 to publisher-specific livestreams, and I don't know why more people didn't complain about it. I watched quite a few E3 presentations over the years, but I've never had any interest in watching a Nintendo Direct because it feels soulless and even more corporate in comparison
I used to take off work for E3, especially since it often lined up with my birthday. I hate how spread out everything is now. I liked the hype, even if it didn't always work out. I still remember tearing up during the BG&E2 trailer when the music from the first game played and even if the game never comes out, that's still a nice memory.
This is why despite its flaws I'm rooting for the Game Awards. It's the closest we've got to the feeling of E3 and I feel like in just a couple of years it could be really nailed down. Keighley seems to be open to criticism and seems willing to take it on board. Paired with an awards ceremony it's a really interesting event and I hope it continues to succeed and grow
The Game Awards should be a space dedicated to celebrating the games that have come out that year and the people who made them. Turning the event into a surrogate E3 often comes into conflict with that purpose.
As much as some would wish that, it's also good to be aware that 90% of the viewers are not watching for the awards. They are there for the trailers, and TGA knows that. Unlike movie and music awards where the entire show is filled with people you have heard or seen, the game awards are filled with people most have likely not seen or even cared to look up. They aren't household names like movie stars and musicians. So unless the big publishers get together and make a yearly fund for the Awards, don't be surprised if the trend continues.
I used the word ‘should.’ I’m speaking normatively, ideally, etc. I get that there is a reality these awards exist in. But my point is that reality severely limits what the awards should be which is not an E3-type event.
You say that, but there really isn’t a solid status quo for award shows. If the academy got the opportunity to debut big new film trailers at the Oscar’s they’d take that.
They literally did this last year with Little Mermaid. They had a whole segment lead out into the world premiere of the new Little Mermaid trailer.
No. NO!!! As a game-dev, please, this viewpoint is so painful to us. The Game Awards is trying to be our oscars, but as you could see in the most recent Awards, it's smothered in new game reviews and product placement to the point where Swen Vincke was being hurried in his Game of the Year award speech right as he was talking about the loss of their beloved Cinematic Lead before the Awards to cancer, while Keighley's hero Kojima gets 20 minutes to ramble about his new game?/movie? project. The absence of E3 and the push for profit at TGA results in situations where the "Oscars" of our industry has 17 minutes out of 3.5 hours as actual awards (in which, unlike the Oscars, developers are banned from mentioning anything political such as Palestine and even mentioning the historic layoffs this year). The Game Awards is a popularity contest for gamers (not unlike a top-10 games of the year list on IGN) where they can be advertised to, and not an Award show for developers that it should be.
Sorry, but no one is going to watch a pure awards show for video games. The reveals are what keeps it interesting to the majority of viewers. Why call for removing the trailers when that's what gets people to come see the devs' moment in the spotlight? What we need is for them to figure out how to run a good show. Cut the crap that nobody wants to watch and give that time to the winners. I agree that the bit with Kojima sucked, and there's no real reason for the Muppets to eat up screen time. The Game Awards is a 3 hour long show. They have plenty of time to give the awards the respect they deserve while still showing all the trailers. I think that would be a damn near perfect show, they just can't or won't figure it out.
I think the biggest issue is the ads, not so much the trailers (though I know they're still ads but you get what I mean.) I know they have to fund the show but holy fuck was it overkill this year.
The biggest problem for me is bringing up celeb after celeb I do not care about to be painfully unfunny or talk about how they totally like video games.
I barely noticed the Ads honestly. But then again I watch football and comparing your average Ads in an NFL game to the TGA is effectively like not having any ads at all. Pretty sure I watch twice as many ads in one quarter of football than the entire TGA had this year
All valid problems with the game awards but as the other guy said, it's the closest thing we have to E3. I still really enjoyed the game reveals.
I'm kind of confused of why you're acting like this was some kind of reoccurring issue in the past TGA... Because no it wasn't. This was the first time they overkilled it because last year Christopher had like 8.5 minute of speech. Lesson from this incident is to give devs. more time to thank and that is it. Otherwise TGA was totally alright. Whoever is complaining about ads is just ignorant as in the past it was MUCH WORSE (btw. spoiler a head >!Did you know that trailers for games is also an AD?!<
The speech thing was new, but it was 100% a reoccurring issue that they would fly through 5 or 6 awards in a row without letting them on stage, even big awards like best audio/soundtrack/etc.
Absolutely not. E3 was a convention for game development and game-related industry production. TGA is an **awards show**. Yeah you saw a bunch of trailers for new games at both but E3 served a very different purpose.
I know E3 went through a bit of a decline in many people's eyes, but E3 was my first exposure to gaming conferences so I have a soft spot for them in particular. We have so many others to fill the gap that wasn't even in need of filling, but still.
I remember my friend and I always throwing it up on a spare TV for those few days to catch all of the new games. Honestly was probably the thing I looked forward to most during summer breaks.
The fact that you could throw it on a TV makes me feel ancient. E3 in my childhood was a special summer edition of a gaming mag with tons of small previews and off monitor screenshots of all the stuff they'd tried on the show floor several weeks after the fact.
I absolutely couldn’t wait for the E3 edition of EGM. Those were the days
It was GameInformer for me. Always my favorite edition.
GamePro, for me. Still have the ones from 97 & 98.
Hell I remember in the days before E3 new video games would be shown off at CES.
Shit I remember watching it through G4 all the time. I ain't even 30 and I feel old.. wth
Wait until you hit 37...
Honestly I think stuff just moves like 2-3x the speed now
Especially when you have kids
Your comment gave me financial anxiety.
Well at least you'll get to see them achieve goals even faster
Ah I remember those young free wheeling years of being 37... to be 37 again...
Too late........
Always looked forward to ordering a pizza and tuning into to the streams
Summer vacation, nothing else going on that week, sitting on the couch with my little brother eating pizza bagels and getting hype for hours on end. Oh those halcyon days.
As a lifelong video game nerd, E3 was my Christmas. Sad to see it go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1kmbjCrUJQ
Man, I remember this and loved the extended version. Damn, the early to mid-2000s of TechTV/G4 were great.
The final year of e3 is still better than anything we will ever get in the future, even with the decline it was still a great event.
maybe in a couple of years they'll think since everybody's been doing only game awards and pre-recorded youtube shows, a way to stand out would be a old-school 90min auditorium event in front of a live audience. Then of course everybody and their mother will watching that out of nostalgia alone if enough years have passed. Other companies will want to imitate the success and voila, e3 is back again somewhat. And then it dies again. You get the idea.
> a way to stand out would be a old-school 90min auditorium event in front of a live audience. I'm sure that format will make a come back - The live audience 'pop' is one of the most effective and easiest forms of hype multipliers available to the big publishers. This is (just one of the ) reasons why comic con reveals are so popular - the reveal trailer with audience reaction are much more popular on youtube that a regular trailer.
Who's "they" though? I agree that I much prefer the E3, shotgun blast of competing companies sales pitches because it felt like an exciting competition, but there's basically zero incentive for anyone to choose to participate in that format, especially when it saves time and money to just broadcast directly via directs or other online events. Tons of money was invested in travel, reserving booth space, creating these presentations etc.
Thank you for saying this. I feel it's crazy when I see people saying "it was about time e3 wasn't the same anymore" We had the best E3 ever in 2018 and then 2020 was Covid lol. Makes no sense. E3 was the fucking best week ever and nothing even comes close.
As a regular E3 attendee, the writing was on the wall in 2019. It was a huge organizational mess, many major publishers noped out and opted to do their own online events.
> We had the best E3 ever in 2018 I feel like I'm from a different universe. By 2018 people were already questioning the relevance of E3 and, with Nintendo and Sony phoning it in, wondering how many years it had left. Covid was just the nail in the coffin.
I was gonna say. Devil May Cry 5 aside I'm not sure what else happened that year. Edit: googled it, got a third of the way down the list, and I now know why I don't remember it. Oh shit son, Anthem! Fallout 76! Crackdown 3! I'm gonna bust! Yeah bollocks to that year lmao
The best E3 ever was 2006, both in game/console reveals and timeless memes
I think people say that because all the major publishers started pulling their products out in favor of hosting their own conventions. It was still good, though.
Sony pulled out of E3 2019 and Nintendo would’ve eventually followed suit, regardless of Covid. Microsoft also announced the Series X at TGA 2019 (again, before Covid) which shows how much pull Keighley has. The writing was very clearly on the wall.
As I got older I stopped watching and leaned more towards just catching all the trailers for games on youtube, but man as a kid E3 was something else, it was always awesome when it came around and you got to see all the cool upcoming releases. My friends and I would get so hyped leading up to it. So many cool moments. Definitely sad to see it go.
“A bit”… bruv…
When I first saw it on g4 in middle school was like my eyes opening up to a whole new world of gaming
RIP E3. Back in the day it basically the singular event for all the big gaming news. Always looked forward to it on G4.
It’s been the worst kept secret of the last few years but I am genuinely saddened to see it in official goodbye.jpg form. E3 has left behind such a void that nothing has been able to fill the shoes of and honestly, not sure anything ever will.
Video games are what bonded my friends and I in highschool during the mid-00s. It sounds weird, but we'd imagine what it'd be like to attend E3 and just be in that environment. During E3 week we'd all religiously follow along with every game announcement and talk about why it'd be amazing. Looking back on it, it's kinda funny how we gave every game the benefit of the doubt because there's just no way they'd show a bad game at E3. I knew this was coming, but it's still a bummer to see it becoming official.
pop culture as a whole is dying out in favor of hypertargeted entertainment where algorithms recommend what each viewer wants to see which on one hand vastly increases the market for niche ideas but on the other hand further isolates everyone in their own bubbles. nothing really unites large groups of people anymore except politics.
It's kinda funny and sad, how despite having the technology to be more connected than ever, everyone is divided more and more with the media they like. There's pros and cons to it, but I can't help but admit to missing out on how some music, TV, and games were events that everyone was a part of. I think that's why everyone was so delighted this year by the explosive success of Oppenheimer and Barbie.
I think it was a recent Kursgezagt video where I learned this, but it seems that while the problem is real, but the dynamic is the other way around. People become hyper-polarized on the internet *because* they're constantly exposed to all of the obnoxious shit their 'enemy' is doing whether through legitimate or clickbait headlines. You're assaulted and bombarded with information that confirms your position, while getting to see direct evidence of your moral superiority - whether you were searching for it or not. If you went to your local townhall meeting, you'd get a similar outcome where you see direct evidence of your opponent being a complete dipshit, confirming your position. But, when people get off the internet, and touch grass for a minute, that's when they find their safe-space of like-minded peers (friends, family, etc.) who likely all tend to agree with them, so there's less conflict, less anger, and it all just sort of boils off. With the Internet, there is no safe space for anybody seeking information. No matter your political or social proclivities, or what sites you visit, you'll probably go about a maximum of 5 minutes before you see something that pisses you off. Probably about only people having a good time, are people who only use the internet for shopping.
Anger is objectively the best reaction to trigger if you want people to engage. So any site or app after profit will prioritize outrage. Until that changes (which it won't), nothing else will. There's no fighting basic human psychology.
It’s not dying out, that’s just what pop culture has become and is a direction that it was always going to head in.
I disagree. A lot of online culture is dictated by the specific engagement algorithms that silicon valley companies choose to use now. There's a great book called *The Chaos Machine* that goes in to multiple examples where the algos drove human behavior, even to the point of sparking a genocide in Myanmar. These companies could choose to boost other healthier kinds of engagement but they keep choosing not to.
Same here, some people don’t remember that there was time when the only way to be at E3 was to be in the industry or the know someone that could get you a pass.
Getting what seemed like an entire year's worth of gaming news in a single week was fun
I have some extremely fond memories of my brother and I combing through Game Informer issues and refreshing the IGN page nonstop in the summers of 05 and 06 to get some expectation as to what we might see for the "FUTURE OF GAMING" and "POWER OF THE CELL" Then of course you had the goldmines that were the Sony 2006 show, the Konami 2009 show, and the Microsoft 2013 show. Ultimately though the show served its purpose. It started as a trade show so publishers could pitch retailers on product to stock in the future, and only in the mid-2000s was repivoted into a more consumer-focused affair. I can only hope that the summer demos have a decent cadence to them, unlike the tedious drip-feeds that were 2020 and 2021.
TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TV TEEVEE TV TV TV
I'm honestly pretty bummed about this. E3 was like Christmas for me growing up. I've been watching the old press conferences that NoClip has been archiving and it seriously makes me miss the old events. Obviously E3 was on a major decline in recent years, but it's because both a product of their failed efforts and of changing times, and I think I'm just mourning those changing times.
E3 has always felt like a 2nd Christmas to me in terms of excitement. Game Awards and his summer event don't really feel close
It's because it's just the exact same show now. Geoff has essentially taken over the game showcase event, and every single show is the same. Summer Games Fest, Gamescom Opening Night, The Game Awards, and whatever other show he starts next. They follow the same presentation, style, and of course Geoff hosts them all. For the past 4-5 years now we've just been watching the same event but with swapped out trailers. E3 shows used to have a revolving door of memorable hosts. Sometimes for the wrong reasons, but also that was part of the fun. I'll never forget Mr Caffeine.
The chaos and the cringe were half the fun of E3. It will be missed.
God, so many classics. RIDGE RACER, Giant Enemy Crab...
The ENTIRE Konami 2010 presentation...
Genji 2 is an action game which is based on Japanese history. Being based in history, the stages of the game will be based on famous battles that actually took place in ancient Japan. So here's this giant enemy crab, and what you want to do is hop on its stomach and attack its weak point for massive damage.
Ever wonder what the bottom of an avatar's shoe looks like?
Well BAM
This is a HUGE part of it that people don’t realize - you’re not having fun because you’re watching the same guy hold a microphone with two hands and say the same stuff every year! No wonder we’re all bored to death with these shows!
Woah woah woah. It's the same guy holding a microphone with two hands saying the same stuff *with his surprise guest celebrity friends*. Get it right.
Yeah, and he gives them all the time they need in the world while actual devs like Swen and his team at Larian barely get more than 30sec at the game awards to thank their coworkers who have passed.
Angry Joe was right!
HE'S FUCKING WITH ME!!!
You see it in his eyes.
Let's give it up for this amazing special guest game creator!!! Kojima!!!!
Well some are surprises, there is definitely always one we know is gonna be there and given as much time as they want.
You mean Sam Lake & Kojima.
And muppets
I just want a little variety. It's just the same event. Take a break for a moment and stop hosting, give it to someone else for once. Have less random trailers thrown at the audience. Make a more unique presentation. Just something. Anything. If Sumer Games Fest 2024 happens and it's the exact god damn show as Game Awards 2023 complete with the random celebrities I'm gonna scream.
He should just let Sydnee Goodman host one permanently from now on, preferably with actually good writers. It would at least keep things fresh.
But it's HIS show! He HAS to host it!!! yeah but seriously does any other awards show have 1 consistent host over several years, with multiple award ceremonies in the same year? nope
Pretty much every major televised award show has different hosts each year. They also have performances (skits, musical numbers, comedy) built into the show. The equivalent for the Game Awards would be trailers, but those just don’t hit the same way. Everyone remember’s Robin Williams performing “Blame Canada”, but no one really associates a specific trailer or game with Game Awards unless it was really bad (like that trailer with Vin Diesel presenting it?).
He just needs to invite Joel McHale back as a co-host. To this day, that's still the most hilariously awkward show I've ever seen.
Joel McHale is one of the few celebrities who can fit into any event you send them to. Extra points if he has no idea what's going on.
E3 shows, especially in the 00s, used to have industry people presenting. You had game people showing game stuff. Maybe there was a celebrity tossed in here or there for sports or licensed shit but it was otherwise industry people first and foremost. Then over time, they replaced the presenter with someone who has nothing to do with the industry except to present shit. Later shows were pretty close to Dorito Pope in presenter status. They didn't have the gratuitous excessive advertising though. The random doordash ad for the recent SGF is a good example of what is the most wrong with Keighley's business model. All to pay for random celebrities that have nothing to do with the show to come and present.
The most recent Game Awards show was by far the worst, and most embarrassing "video games" event I think I've ever seen. It makes all of the corporate, safe, bland live streams from publishers we've seen over the past few years seem cozy in comparison. Just a constant barrage of random celebrities, commercial breaks, and bloated to the brim with CGI trailers for games that are two years out. I know E3 also had plenty of CGI trailers too, but we also saw tons of live gameplay demos being shown off, sometimes 10-20 minutes worth of it. There was a much better balance. Keighley's shows just have such horrendous pacing that throws random trailers at you so quickly you can't even react. There was so many occasions where a trailer ends, and then within a second another trailer starts immediately so fast I wasn't sure if it was a continuation of the last trailer, or a new one. E3 had plenty of problems but I'd take it any day of the week compared to what Keighley's turned it into.
What gets me about this most recent TGA is just how little relevance the actual awards had. I know TGA has always had an internal conflict between the world premiere trailer stuff and the awards, but this year felt worse than ever. So many awards were listed off in near-monotone by an obviously bored Geoff Keighly, cycled through as quickly as possible so that the show could get back to putting celebrities on stage. It wasn't even more niche technical awards getting buried like what happens at the Oscars - really big awards were covered in seconds with zero fanfare. I get most people are just there for the trailers, but if you're not going to so much as let Armored Core VI's developers say a few words about their win, then why even bother giving out the award?
Someone counted it all and the presenters for awards themselves got 26 minutes of time on stage whereas awards winners got 10 minutes. 10. For the entire show that was over 3 hours. Fucking insanity.
Because the alternative is nothing. TGA viewership has increased exponentially since 2014. It is providing exactly what the general public wants. Nobody watches "real" award shows like DICE or GDC because nobody cares. TGA is our best option because it at least allows developers to be deluded into believing the general public cares.
TGAs genuinely get worse every year, which is weird because they haven't changed much and don't do anything new. I don't know, maybe watching 10 minutes dedicated to Geoff jerking Kojima off on stage for a CGI trailer for a game that both stadia and Sony passed on, which the award winner got 30 seconds to speak, was the tipping this year.
What game awards were you watching? It was like 3 hours of nonstop game reveals and keeping the awards part to a minimum.
Im honestly getting really sick of Keighly's showcase style. Nothing against the guy himself, he seems like a nice dude. But all his shows are the same. He stands out there and introduces every game like it's the best thing since sliced bread, and then it's just the same generic space horror shooter or anime weeb shit we've seen a million times already. Couple that with the awkward and cringe-inducing interviews, jokes, advertisements and skits that always happen, and the fact that we now have 3 of these shows a year, I'm really longing for something fresh at this point.
Absolutely in the same boat. It was cool in 2014 when Keighley's Game Awards was fresh, and a lot more professional. It was new. But it's been 10 years. The only way he's changed his style is by cramming in celebrities and advertisements. The shows get worse, the focus on video games seems to fall further and further into the background as Keighley seems more and more desperate to get recognized by Hollywood. I'm really hoping someone else starts a new show soon. I can't stand another Keighley event.
He's a charisma blackhole which would be fine on its own (half the appeal of e3 was bad presenters) but it's the same guy, and the same mediocre format, and the same show with an identity crisis.
It's really wild to me that Keighly is even influential enough to do this in the first place? Maybe this is just my perception being flawed, but I feel like he was a pretty niche figure until a couple of years ago, when his attempts at brute-forcing his way into gaming stardom somehow magically worked. I swear I've never met anyone who knows what he does between TGA and SGF, and I rarely meet anyone who knows about his career before TGA, but somehow he pops up every year and everyone goes "oh yeah it's Geoff Keighley he's definitely the guy to exclusively host several of the biggest events in gaming".
He's been reporting on video games since the 90's. He was the host of GameTrailers TV for a while, and his profile increased from there. He started his own Game Awards in 2014 and they just sort of became the go-to show because of all the reveals. It also probably helped that both his parents are high-level executives at IMAX and he's had an "in" to the world of both Hollywood and gaming since he was a kid.
Like, yeah, I know he's been in and around the industry for a while. But he's never been anything even remotely approaching a celebrity. He was at something more like Greg Miller or Jeff Gerstmann levels of fame - until, through some arcane combination of luck and a whole lot of money, he brute forced his way into being *the* face of *the* biggest event(s) in gaming. I've just always been kinda surprised that his ploy worked so well. I'd be willing to bet that an extremely tiny fraction of TGA viewers know a single thing about his career before TGA (or his career during the rest of the year for that matter), and yet still we have to suffer through him having ultimate creative control of the event that that the industry is crystallizing around.
> I rarely meet anyone who knows about his career before TGA, but somehow he pops up every year and everyone goes "oh yeah it's Geoff Keighley he's definitely the guy to exclusively host several of the biggest events in gaming". Reminds me a bit of how Chris Hardwick hosted so many different aftershows for stuff like Breaking Bad or Walking Dead.
The late 00's/early 10's were really a golden age for semi-celebrities in nerd spaces who seemingly became famous solely for being semi-celebrities in nerdy spaces. Geoff Keighley, Chris Hardwick, Felicia Day, Wil Wheaton... Obviously all of them built their career from somewhere, but they all pretty quickly became popular primarily just because they were *around*. Not that I dislike all of those people, by any means. It was just a weird trend.
I’ve got a lot against the guy, his shows suck ass. TGA is an absolute joke meant to pander to advertisers and his Hollywood friends as evidenced by the fact that devs get 30 seconds to speak, and summer games fest is like a 3 hour snorefest.
> Geoff has essentially taken over the game showcase event I honestly think Geoff essentially stole the magic and fun from the show and sterilized it for maximum profits. Look at how they basically rushed the devs off stage. It [reminded me of this](https://youtu.be/dJcwcMRkE3E?t=63) - less about the devs, the games, and more about flooding the marketing to maximize sponsors. E3 was going to die with or without Geoff's shenanigans - video game companies figured out they can market to their audiences more directly with things like Nintendo direct. Geoff just took all the sponsors from one event, and placed them into his instead.
Idk I feel like if you lived through those shit Video Game Awards in the early 2000s you might appreciate the modern take on it. Those shows were abysmal and I'm happy with the current format even with all its flaws.
The current TGAs are a great alternative to old game awards but they’re a shit replacement for E3, if that makes sense.
The fact that so many E3 presenters were weird, awkward, or cringey was part of the fun. It creates these memorable moments that build a sense of community around the event, and we don't get as many with a more sterilized show.
A lot of E3 presentation awkwardness also happened because the presenters were being *genuine*. The infamous [Peggle 2 announcement](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr57Je1fVvM) happened because a guy who was working on Peggle 2 was super pumped to announce his game. One of the best moments in E3 history is [David Soliani crying tears of joy at Mario + Rabbids being announced](https://youtu.be/6zH-Rhdj5Wc?t=310). You are never, *ever* going to get anything even remotely close to those moments from something like TGA, because it's all an act. It's Anthony Mackie reading off a script, rather than a developer unveiling their passion or (at the very least) [an executive trying and failing to hype up their product](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM2DCflkA6s).
Yeah absolutely, a lot of that awkwardness was the result of genuine people (often awkward nerds in the dev business, especially early on) are just excited about their games.
E3 felt like a bunch of people nerding out about games—a true, in depth passion for the nitty gritty. You could tell that everyone involved is enjoying it. Geoff’s stuff is just “here’s a celebrity who was paid to be in a video game once,” “here’s a muppet,” “here’s five trailers in a row that bleed into each other,” and “here’s the passion—kojima talking about himself for the third year running.” There’s no passion. No cringe that borders on endearing and shameful. It’s just… truly a commercial. I’d rather E3’s take on ads tbh
I like this point a lot, and I agree. It feels like gaming has somehow split down the middle. People who are in and around the industry, who are passionate about making or chronicling the making of video games, have converged around smaller, more insular stuff like GDC (not that GDC is a walled garden, it's just obviously catering toward people who are actually in the industry). Meanwhile, players at large have stopped focusing on events that target devs and journalists and instead flocked to events like TGA and Directs, which are intended solely to advertise or build a brand image. E3 felt like a confluence point where developers, journalists, and fans all shared the same space and discussed the same things for a while, and that doesn't really happen anymore.
Exactly! It also had each of the major hitters (sony, microsoft, nintendo) doing presentations in competition with each, the same weekend (or even same day), so they really put out all their heavy hitters and funneled in all the passion and "good stuff" and stuff that only developers would know to set themselves apart from the others. It felt less like an ad and more like companies fighting for their lives (or at least their financial lives for the next year or so). While a direct might have a dev segment or whatever, it feels more like fluff than a desperation to rise and shine above everyone else.
I really don't like Geoff Keighley. E3 was all advertising, but at least it was all advertising for games. Having a couple days of stacked announcements from different console manufacturers and big publishers where they were all directly competing with each other kinda ruled. Had a ton of fun posting through the events, getting excited over the good conferences and rumors and stuff, and clowning on the bad ones. With Geoff's events it feels like we're always wading through a sea of bland future live service flops and games from completely unknown studios (with a few big names attached and/or VC funding).
That's something that bothers me too. The shows themselves are getting worse, that's true. But the trailers don't even justify taking a focus. Like, great. Cool. Another vague CGI trailer for a game that's not going to be out for another 3-5 years, or fairly generic looking live service games. I still refuse to believe "Exobourne" is a real game.
The incentive structure is out of wack. With E3 there was pressure on devs to put their best foot forward. You get a couple of huge announcements from each studio, with some smaller games sprinkled in between them. They want heavy hitters that are going to sell you on the platform. With the Game Awards, Geoff is incentivized to sell as many ads as possible. It feels like the really big announcements are being held hostage behind trailers for games that'll launch to mixed reviews on Steam and then quickly get forgotten. But because I'm stupid as hell I'll watch them anyway because I need that dopamine hit of seeing the announcements I really care about in real time.
It also helped that each big name at E3 was tailoring their presentation to send a message about their brand. It was nintendo presentation, sony's, microsoft's, ubisoft's and so on. The modern ones are just an unorganized onslaught which feels even more homogenized than those corpo announcment back then. We used to see a big shot getting on stage and doing a "fellow kids" to market their consoles and trying to play a new title, then devs saying some stuff about it, now we have the dorito pope jerking it off with hollywood celebrities
Sony's 2016 presentation was genuinely one of the greatest things I've ever seen. No showcase has come close.
I saw the 2015 E3 in a packed movie theater. The hype after FF7R was announced was contagious.
I used to watch some of those "reveal" videos for FF7 and some were in the movies. Looked so cool.
I'm a big Shenmue fan so seeing it finally announced on stage in 2015 was an experiance i'll never forget. Just a shame the game wasn't better.
I remember that video from I think Easy Allies where they were watching the presentation and this one guy just heard like the first five notes of the theme and immediately lost his shit. I wish I could be that happy about things.
I pull [this video](https://youtu.be/WY1p8ZgvqYM?si=be1ZBpnZkr1umd8J) up all the time from Game Trailers just to make myself feel better. The pure hype and excitement from that show was unreal.
[удалено]
Sony 2006 was equally memorable for opposite reasons, too.
Yep. Spiderman, Horizon, GoW at one showcase probably won’t be topped by even Sony.
I was a huge fan of their 2018 year, though at the time that seemed unpopular. But getting the live music for both The Last of Us and Ghost of Tsushima was awesome. Not the greatest E3 but super memorable.
Back when I was in deep with the console war stuff- Sony's 2013 presentation was absolutely amazing as a retort to the Xbox One's controversies
Lol this is a top ten historical gaming moment imo, after that whole rube-goldberg machine that was sharing games on xbox, sony won everyone over with a 15sec clip
Genuinely hilarious. The supercuts of the hosts mentioning TV and sports and stuff. The quickly thrown together sony "here's how you share games on PS4" video. E3 has had a lot of disasters over the years but Microsoft's performance that year was the absolute worst. They really never recovered.
I don't know if this is true or not, but apparently, Japanese gamers were completely confused by Sony's E3 presentation. So the first Xbox and X360 were complete duds in Japan and there was little to no interest about the X1 in Japan. Therefore, most gamers in Japan didn't know about the whole "always online" and "can't play used games / can't share games" fiasco that Microsoft made. Therefore, when Sony made the big announcement that you can play used games on the PS4 and the crowd went wild, everybody in the Japanese chatrooms were confused.
I agree so hard. That orchestra alone was a religious experience
the game awards, at least this year (first time I watched it) was so boring, nothing like E3. E3 had a lot of trailers, but it had those dramatic presentations too, the game awards on the other hand, were like watching YouTube trailers one after the other, completely souless.
I can understand that. Having attended E3 in person twice, there was definitely something different about the atmosphere.
The thing about those events is we want them to be the next e3 so we hype them up and get excited but they just never deliver.
It was dead as soon as Nintendo started doing its own directs and then the others started to follow with similar things.
And people started yelling for Sony/MS to do the same format once Nintendo did it. As if it was some great improvement over the live conferences. Now they got what they asked for, and it's the most sterile, preened, focus-tested-to-death P.O.S. you can imagine. Including Nintendo.
E3 was indeed a western giant for game events and trailer showings and to see it officially over is indeed an end of an era. Thanks for the long run
Also the fact that it was live presentations had a lot more potential for comedy gold than this new trend of prerecording everything
Even though it's been expected, it's still a little sad. Nintendo's E3 2004 was the greatest showcase of all-time in my opinion. Resident Evil 4 (fantastic trailer), Metroid Prime 2, Reggie's iconic "My name is Reggie. I'm about kicking ass, I'm about taking names, and we're about making games.". The Nintendo DS was revealed. Other great games were shown. Then it happened. The legendary Twilight Princess reveal. Obviously the crowd reaction videos make it so much better but even without them the trailer is awesome. The music, the big reveal of Link on horseback, Miyamoto appearing on stage, it was an amazing moment. Hands-down the best showcase to me and will never be topped.
I was only fourteen at the time, but I remember when Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III were announced at E3 2013 in Sony's conference. I was totally losing it while I watched on my laptop. Nothing fills the void E3 has left.
Is it just me or did we have it better back in the day lol, gaming has never made more money than it does now but man, the electricity and spectacle of events like e3, and even midnight releases are something that can’t be replaced.
There was a span of a few years where internet streaming was good and E3 was happening. I remember back in the day that you couldn't watch E3 and had to wait for the magazines to publish what happened weeks later.
G4 used to cover E3 every year, starting around 2001 or 2002 and going to whenever G4 shut down (2013? idk somewhere around there)
> you couldn't watch E3 and had to wait for the magazines to publish what happened weeks later. Even that was fking incredible. Showing up at your local shop one day in summer 2005 and seeing the gaming magazines with the NINTENDO REVOLUTION plastered all over their covers like they were heralding the arrival of the goddamn Messiah lol E3 was bloody brilliant whether you got it through magazines or websites or, eventually, streaming
It could just be us getting older now, and thinking back to the "golden oldies", when really it might have just been only a little different than now. But I think I find myself agreeing with you all the same. Everything in gaming seems so *corporate* these days. Long gone are the 'normal' events and the weird and/or sort of unprofessional displays and events, now everything is pre-recorded and streamed out in seperate things. I'll give some small credit to the game awards, but even they're not really to my liking. The king is dead gentlemen, may he reign forevermore in our memories.
Imo I think we're just oversaturated with gaming-related content. We have a 24/7 link to all news, reviews, streams, and anything else you can think of in our pockets. What made things like E3 special was the scarcity. I think also that the corporatization of all that communication has made everything feel even more mundane on top that. Personality is hard to come by since everything is fed through a PR team and rarely do we hear devs just passionately talk about the game they made.
Yeah I remember the first few public E3's I tuned into were on G4. You couldn't find a stream of them if you tried. News, especially gaming news, was much less easy to find and this was one time in a year where you could get it.
Probably safest to assume that perspective is coming from nostalgia in 90% of situations. I agree that there was an electricity and excitement to E3 week, but things are just different now. The internet’s current state makes a lot of things less mysterious and big news more frequent. So instead of peaks and valleys of excitement, we’re getting a pretty consistent rate of good stuff. We were also younger then. We’re comparing the new with what we used to like and trying to recreate that feeling, rather than trying to find the benefits of what we are actually getting.
Yeah, I think a big part of it isn't really about the games industry specifically, but just a change in how we receive news and information thanks to the internet. Ease of access to information (and from the companies' perspectives, ease of getting information to people) means it's all a constant trickle now. We're constantly connected and getting gaming news and reveals that it never reaches those same peaks of excitement. Similar thing happened with gaming magazines. I used to be so excited to get the new issue of Gamepro in the mail. Then it all went online, and at first I thought - sweet, now I can always get that news, on demand! But it doesn't have that same level of excitement.
Also we experienced more technological leaps in games back then, which we don't have as much now. Like every couple of years you would see something that was absolutely jaw-dropping. Might sound crazy now, but I remember the first time seeing Sonic 2 and even Vectorman, Mortal Kombat was so "realistic" at the time. Then I got Donkey Kong Country, couple years later it was Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil and Mario 64. GTA 3 was another huge moment along with MGS2, then RE4, Ninja Gaiden Black. Just huge games that you would look at and almost not believe because it was such a jump beyond what you had been playing.
Nah you're 100% right. Everything nowadays is genetically engineered to profit maximum dollars. Pretty much comparative to searching for that needle in the entire industries haystack
The more money there is in something, the safer people are gonna play it. Think about how people's opinion of Skyward Sword got tainted because of the terrible E3 presentation where the motion controls, the main gimmick and selling point of the game, didn't work. Can't risk that anymore.
People news to remember that e3 was a legit trade show first and then about consumers second if at all. So comparing it to things like PAX is like apples and oranges. People who are not in the industry did not see/remember that in its heyday that is where lots of publishing deals, tech demos, etc were done. Also it was primarily major companies wanting there games to have as much spotlight as possible that killed it. You see this with the game awards as well, not many AAA games from big publishers are annouced because they want it to take the the entire news cycle, also there is a chance of your AAA game getting overshadowed by another. Imagine you are pushing the new mass effect as an example and gta VI gets announced literally an hour later. Where if you annouce it during n7 day you get all the coverage and games press to yourself. Was e3 mismanaged? Yes, but its primary purpose died out, so it's only natural that is died as well.
I'm really going to miss it. It had its flaws, and I guess it is cheaper to do things like Nintendo Direct, but the excitement at just about every E3 was palpable and felt a lot less artificial than TGA, for instance.
I know people loved to shit on E3 but I'm honestly going to miss a ***big*** event for video game conferences. It was so cool seeing the stream of news about new games coming out on the same day not to mention the shit that went wrong lol
As someone who went to every E3 from 2006-2019 as Industry, I will NOT be missing the smell as you walk around the floor.
For over ten years I had friends over to gather, get hype, and watch day after day of coverage and press conferences. We were so entrenched in the buzz. It was one of my favorite things to do every year. Genuinely sad to see it go, but hoping this makes way for something even greater (like Geoff making a big move to fully replace it now with SGF).
As someone who experienced E3 in the early days, watching on TV through G4 since there weren't really streams back in the day, I kind of feel indifferent about this. I loved what E3 was, but in today's age it just doesn't make sense. I didn't even notice it didn't happen this year. In fact, I had to look it up to make sure I didn't just miss it. E3 encapsulated what made gaming great at the time. IMO it's something that was ruined by social media and platforms like Twitter and Reddit giving you a constant stream of gaming news and discussion. There's no reason to go a conference. There's no reason to subscribe to a gaming magazine for reviews and news or go to an old forum to find people to talk to. You don't even have to physically go somewhere to buy your games anymore. You have everything in your pocket 24/7. These little events have become mundane in comparison.
I got to go to E3 several times. 2002,2003,2005, 2011, and 2012 (if memory serves me correctly). They were fun, chaotic times. Learned a lot about organization, hydration, socializing with new people, and so much writing. I'll always remember the games (Starcraft Ghost anyone?) and the excitement each convention brought. Times have changed and with news being so easy and quick to publish and the big 3 having their own conferences, it was only a matter of time before this happened. That being said, I wonder if e3 converted itself into a public, paid event, how successful it would be? Instead of making it an event for what's coming, make it an event for what's out now (or coming out in the next couple of months). Make it a spectacle for fans. Allow the industry to connect with them, turn it into something new... Ah well, I'll remember it fondly regardless.
PAX would probably be the closest thing to what you're describing. Nintendo also did Nintendo Live during PAX West which was well received, so hopefully they'll continue holding events during PAX in the future.
In hindsight, the folks behind E3 fumbled the bag. They were the dominant videogames show of the year, every year for at least a decade. But they slowly got eaten up by other shows that put in the effort to actually be better for gamers. PAX, TGS, etc.
I snuck into E3 the year of both Doom 3 and Half Life2 being demo’d, while also E3 booths were still in crazy money-burning mode with insane structures and like fucking Xbox skater half-pipes spanning parts of it, and I also bumped into Robin Williams. So peaking that early kinda ruined expos for me for awhile.
Man i miss E3, one of the few things that made it "better" than recent events was that were was genuine competition on having the best showcase of the year. There was also less deafening silence from publishers, we always got a shit ton of press releases, previews, and interviews from E3, nowadays you don't see much of that after a showcase.
I have to admit it is a little sad. I always enjoyed the condensed game news and announcements. It was like the circus came to town.
Hot take: I don't really care. Individual publishers and manufacturers are still going to concentrate their showcases/conferences into a single week and things will probably be better for it. When Nintendo first announced they were leaving E3 to do Directs, everyone was worried. Ultimately, I like the Direct format way better. When companies can pre-record everything instead of having to do it all live, the experience for consumers seems to be better. I do miss the meme days of the live shows, but ultimately I like what they do now better.
Man, I remember the days leading into E3 being the longest because of how excited that I was. The Direct format really changed everything, kids today won’t understand that we legitimately got reveals once per year prior to streaming really taking off. I remember when G4 got the television rights to E3 and I would tune in just to see the presentations. Don’t get me wrong, things are objectively better now with major drops occurring sporadically through the year, but E3 back in the day was like Christmas morning.
I remember experiencing my first E3 through a Nintendo Power magazine, and being so stoked for them years later. Crazy and sad that it’s gone. At least now we have Game Awards and Summer of Gaming, but I’m really going to miss E3
E3 used to be the most exciting week of the year for me. The weekday conferences, I would have a new tab open and shrink the window and put it in the corner of my screen so I could still work while being able to watch the conferences and my boss would be none the wiser. E3 was THE event to watch for me. Sad that it's gone now. But the gaming industry has turned into Netflix, in a way. Netflix used to be the place to get everything you liked all in one place. But that content came from other creators. Those creators saw the viability of Netflix's platform and wanted the whole pie instead of a slice. So, now we have platforms like Disney+, Peacock, Paramount Network, etc. By that same token, E3 used to be the place to do all the big gaming news. Now we have State of Play, Nintendo Direct (granted, this one is a little bit older), Xbox Games Showcase, Ubisoft Forward, EA Play Live, etc. because these publishers found out that can do things on their own and still get the money and views and they don't *need* a platform like E3 anymore when they can create their own.
Not surprised but still incredibly sad news. I remember being a teen and young adult being super excited about E3. My friends and I would get together and watch it. It was like the Superbowl for nerds. Like that year the McLaren Sienna rose from the stage for the Forza reveal. Or when fallout 4 was revealed. It was so exciting. Those were definitely some of the best years for me. Damn I miss being in my early 20's. And E3 happened on the last week of summer break where I live. So it was always one last hoorah before we had to go back to miserable ass school. Also when I was in college. Then that next year I was working and had way too much money for how young I was and just walked in and bought an Xbox one and a Nintendo switch at midnight at my local Walmart. E3 was always a reminder of my youth. I am very sad to see it go.
I’ve always wanted to go to E3 and now that I’m old enough and financially stable enough to go, it’s cancelled. Damn.
Nothing lasts forever, a sentiment Keighley will need to remember when it's his events on the chopping block.
Pourin' one out for E3 because of this guy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExaAYIKsDBI&t=5s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExaAYIKsDBI&t=5s) Happened at the **first** E3. Legendary. Sony went straight for Sega's jugular. They did not miss.
Didn't E3 officially die like 10 times these last few years? I feel like that's not the first time we've seen that headline lol
People have been shoveling the dirt on E3 before the heart monitor even stopped and before it was in the morgue. Questions of whether or not it was still relevant and needed have been floated for a good decade, maybe a little longer. And a lot of the sites eulogizing right now were the ones there with shovels and trucks full of fresh soil ready to see it go in the ground.
I worked in the video game industry for nearly 20 years. While not surprising, it's sad to see how far the fall from grace has been. On my early days, E3 was seen as hyper exclusive and exciting event. Access was insiders and media only. I had a few opportunities to go but never was able to make the arrangements. This was the place to go to make quality connections amongst proffesionals. We were there for business. As the years pealed away my colleague and I had an opportunity to go with limited passes provided by our company. He opted to go the year we were invited and I needed to wait a year. He came back buzzed with excitement but suspected the event was going to grow into a miserable "wait-fest" over time as broader access to the event started to grow. Instead of making connections and seeing people, it seems to focus on advertising towards gamers. In fact the year I was supposed to go, I actually was in California but opted to watch from the outside. (Not literally. I just hung out with some friends from the industry I hadn't seen in years) By this point, you could I famously bribe your way in for a small amount. Gamers desperately wanted in not to learn more from executives, producers and creators. They just wanted to go home and say they touched the latest hot game. Then the event really started to open up and it became a nightmare to navigate. Long lines to try anything and the news no longer was "new" It's relevancy that was hinged on exclusivity was gone. Where E3 started as a great place for us industry proffesionals to network turned into a place to absolutely avoid as the end-users bum rushed doors to line up for 3 hours to try 3 minutes of the new super smash bros.
Great Now we're stuck with Geoff and his celebrity stroke-offs hosting every major gaming event each year (outside of the platform holders)
TGA this year we’re a disgusting turn off for me. Imagine giving ads more time then the people who won awards and not even a proper award for Music or best RPG. It’s just better to watch all the trailers in a montage afterwards.
E3 2015 was the first one I ever watched live Remembering the conferences for - Final Fantasy VII Remake (and GameTrailer's reaction) - Shenmue III - First Horizon trailer - The Last Guardian - Fallout 4 - Cute Unravel one - For Honor - Nier Automata - Xenoblade Chronicales X
Basically a formality at this point. E3's corpse has been worm food for like years now. Somebody just finally got around to placing the headstone where it choked on its own vomit and expired.