The E3 Presentation format...

[NeoCracker]

I am not the only one to think this, I know, but lets bring the discussion about the E3 presentation format here.

Specifically what brings this up is Nintendo. A lot of people are saying that they way they have started doing their conference is superior in that they aren't holding some kind of press conference on the E3 floor for the journalists their, and instead focus on the online and streaming.

Some Journalists, such as Jim Sterling, have stated that it's actually a lot easier for them to do their job this way, and is far less overwhelming among other things.

In addition, after the initial Conference, Sony and Microsoft were pretty much done. Nintendo, on the other hand, had their Nintendo Tree stream going on throughout all of E3, dishing out updates on their on-floor presentations.

[Slothy]

Speaking as someone who feels E3 is unnecessary all together, I'd say anything that involves companies showing the actual games and is for the fans and not some marketing department circle jerk is superior by default.

[Psychotic]

Speaking as someone who feels E3 is unnecessary all together, I'd say anything that involves companies showing the actual games and is for the fans and not some marketing department circle jerk issuperior by default.

This man knows the score.

[Bolivar]

Nothing tops the crowd reaction from a live audience. It's also more transparent to have someone playing a game on stage in real time rather than the smoke and mirrors you can pull off in a pre-recorded video

[NeoCracker]

...Yeah, if they were actually playing games onstage you may have a point, considering how often we've had a guy pretending to play a game. (Also, there was a lot of gameplay you saw live over the Tree House coverage, so I don't really know what your point here is)

And yeah, the live audience reaction can be fun, but not particularly useful.

[Slothy]

Audience reactions serve one purpose: to get people hyped. But after thinking about it a lot I believe I agree with Jim Sterling quite strongly on the subject of hype (I think he said this anyway). Hype only benefits one party: the developers/publishers. They want you hyped so that you're less critical and analytical about what you see and more likely to part with your money sight unseen. And at this point I've seen enough games prey on that over the years to be cynical about the whole thing. By all means, if someone wants to get excited then go ahead. But remember that unless you retain a critical eye with regard to everything you see, that excitement can work against you, and a lot of companies want that to work against you since it's more money in their pockets.

That's part of why I don't like E3 anymore. If they wanted people excited about good games, showing actual gameplay footage of good games with minimal marketing bulltrout will do that for most people. And honestly, after almost two decades of following E3's, seeing one bulltrout pre-rendered trailer after another, and basically being lied to more and more each year, actual gameplay footage is about the only thing that will get so much as a second glance out of me. Everything else is just noise trying to part me and my money and I have a lot less to spend on games than I used to, and a lot less patience for following stuff that doesn't grab me.

There's still the problem that Neocracker mentioned in that you never know if they're actually playing what they're showing. Even popping someone up on stage with a controller in hand literally tells you nothing unless you're able to follow their control inputs and the game simultaneously to see that they all match up, but at least showing what is supposed to be some gameplay is less of a lie than most of the trailers we get. And ever since the whole Dead Island thing I think more people are realizing that these cinematic trailers are horsetrout, but at least a gameplay trailer, even if fake, presents an idea of what they want the game to be. I still don't place a lot of value in them beyond adding something to a mental list of games to check out proper gameplay previews of when journalists get their hands on them, but it's orders of magnitude less insulting than a cinematic trailer. I feel like companies are treating me like an idiot when they want me to get excited about that stuff.

Honestly, I'd rather see E3 end and see a dedicated game show for smaller companies that actually need the exposure. Guys like Microsoft, Sony, EA, etc. are all going to buy all the marketing they need. They don't need an extra three days or whatever dedicated solely to them feeding us more bull. I want to see the companies that could never afford to go to E3 getting a place to meet journalists, put a controller in their hand, and get the word out. I think on the whole that would be a lot healthier for the industry.

[Aulayna]

E3 isn't really completely about the consumer anymore though, the dreamy days of 20 years ago - before the industry became all about publishers and multi-million dollar deals, are long gone. It's a trade show for the industry at large, sure we get to see what's coming - and get marketted too. But E3 is largely for winning press converage and investment opportunities. The expo always has been by the industry, and for the industry and is pretty much all business relations. When there's only so much floorspace available, naturally publishers are going to be using that to show off the "money makers."

Public trade shows like Gamescom, and to some extent PAX - are more for the benefit of consumers, and giving people hands-on game play.

There is a lot of indie and smaller studio exposure at the likes of GDC. A colleague of mine left and started his own company, they've made some very well received iOS/Android titles (some have since been put on Steam), they had a little company booth at GDC in San Francisco, yet you won't see a mention of them on sites like GameSpot/IGN etc.

E3 is like the Hollywood of the games industry, is is predominately the movers and shakers roaring and money being exchanged left right and center. It is, however, not a beast on it's own. Money is a very key factor in the industry at large, the press will cover what gets them clicks, because most of the press are ultimately part of corporately owned businesses after all - so therefore the AAAs shown at the likes of E3 are what get the most coverage. During the recession, the video game industry was one of the few that still remained profitable and a large amount of investors went into it. However, if you're a publicly traded company, your ultimately bottom line is your share holders, not the consumer. Now in most cases, giving the consumer what they want - usually results in profitable returns - but that's not the only way. This has lead to a plague of quick buck titles over recent years and the business practices of that are certainly being felt with the number of high-profile (and more importantly, low-profile) studio closures and lay-offs in the past two years.

Gaming in general is a lot like the movie industry now. There are big publishers churning out AAA titles at spiraling costs with prolific distribution. Then there are smaller and independent studios clipping away from the other end. E3 is Hollywood, Indies/Smaller Studios are the Raindance and Sundance of gaming. The indie scene has been booming in recent years. The difference between gaming and movies, is that digital distribution has been far more widely adopted for gaming - with platforms like Google Play/iOS/Steam etc all giving ways for Indie developers to circulate their titles without the absurd publishing fees normally involved. But it's also shooting itself in the foot with the number of failed KickStarter projects and Early Access titles on Steam that seem to perpetually be stuck in Alpha builds. Let alone the saturation of imitation titles too. This is causing consumers to be cynical of these titles, let alone actual investors or mainstream press coverage.

E3 as a whole will likely not change. It's a business event, through and through.

[Pumpkin]

I like hearing about E3 because I know what games to look forward to, but I never actually watch it. About 90% of the time, I decide which games I want to play before ever seeing any gameplay or cinematic scenes or anything.

All I need is a title and a general description and I'm good to go

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I was thinking of making this thread after E3, but was too lazy to do it! For someone like me, I think Nintendo's format is much more beneficial. We get the trailers and whatnot to build the hype, and they can deliver it to us without a hitch. This allows them to do fun things like the robot chicken-esque skits and the clip they had of Reggie and Miyamoto fighting. All of this was able to be kept in a nice, concise video (less than 50 minutes). After they had built that hype, they had the nintendo treehouse showing off the actual gameplay of these games. On top of that they had the Smash Bros tournament going. I'm entertained, I'm hyped, and I get to see actual gameplay. I'm getting everything I personally want from E3 there.

Really, I think more companies should be taking a page from Nintendo's book with game announcements anyways with Nintendo Direct and things like that.

I'd also like to see more companies having their own press stuff like Square Enix Presents. Maybe it's just that I really enjoyed watching Yoshi-P and the Theatrhythm director duke it out in Theatrhythm, and then having to eat a hot pepper as punishment for losing. It was amusing.

[Wolf Kanno]

While I largely agree with Vivi22 and NeoCracker's assessment of E3 the last decade, what I do like about E3 is that it serves as the big announcement event for all platforms. If each company had their own online show they could choose whatever date they want and then each company would try to market around when the other was going to do their events and then we would either wind up with an online E3 event or just have press conferences haphazardly scheduled throughout the year. It kind of bothers me that I got nothing new from Atlus at E3 cause they held their own Persona event a few months back and don't need to show anything new cause they've been pumping news about their products fairly often since then. I've also been irked by SE making Tokyo Game Show a letdown by not really announcing anything because they had their own press show being held the following week and reserved everything for that. The best thing about events like E3 and TGS is that they serve as the big announcement event where we as gamers get a preview of what to expect the next couple of years and its centralized as opposed to being announced in a piece meal style throughout the year.

I'm not surprised Jim Sterling prefers separate events since it would mean more work for a game journalist/game news site, especially if the competition did separate events across several months time. So while I feel he strikes a few good points about E3, I can't help but feel he's a little bias on the subject due to his profession. For the most part, I don't really care either way.

[NeoCracker]

I think E3 could still exist via something like the Nintendo Tree House though. You get the huge floor show and gathering of everything, their major announcements handled via Nintendo Direct, and then the live streaming of all the floor booths they have.

It could easily still accomplish the same purpose it always had, only better then ever before. I mean the journalists and what not that are going to be their playing the floor games and what not aren't going to be able, or all companies willing to, fly each one out to individual events year round. There would still be a reason to have E3.

[Skyblade]

Personally, I vastly preferred Nintendo's style to the typical "press conference" type. It kept the games tight and focused, and was more about presenting things to the viewer than anything else.

Not to mention, I really just don't see the point in hugely hyping some of the stuff. "Check out our FIRST EVER WHITE PS4!" I'm sorry, THAT is worth dedicating time on a stage performance for?