E3 stifles criticism, falls on sword

WHEN I FIRST heard rumblings that E3 was going to be downsized, I was pretty happy. Upon getting more details, I think they doomed the whole show rather than saved it.

I attended the past three E3s, but did not get an invite to the current one, and seeing as there are only 32 companies there, I am not sure it is worth a plane ticket. The first two E3s I attended, 2004 and 2005 were zoos, it was next to impossible to get things done.

There was an abject failure by the E3 people to control anyone coming in the door, everyone who wanted to got in, and the controls on who got a press pass were rather ludicrous. The press room was swamped with people who 'had a blog about games', you know the type, and the show floor was equally infested.

If you went to a booth and waded through the knee-biters, you were just about guaranteed to be blown off. You could not talk to anyone worth talking to, could not get near the demos that were worth seeing, and it was a mess.

It had gone from trade show to three days of fun for the little squirts, and that is the death knell for any trade show (Pay attention CES!).

Then in 2006, something interesting happened, E3 started clamping down. It wasn't a 16 year-old free-for-all anymore, they started getting stringent. They actually enforced the rules, somewhat. The first upshot? You could walk through the halls, and the wait in lines went from 15 minutes to five.

Things were looking up. If they kept things going on the same path for 2007, you might have actually gotten back to the trade show mentality that they lost so many years ago. Yay.

Then they appeared to throw in the towel, probably for financial reasons, but no one I know is talking. Welcome to the new E3 Media & Business Summit. This one really cuts down on who shows up, it is invite only, and that is their downfall. (1)

You need to be invited by one of the attendees to get in. In fact, if you don't already have an invite, you are SOL. This is the biggest end-run around any criticism and a complete stifling of the press that I have seen in years.

What is the problem? If a company likes you, you are in. If they don't like you, you are shut out. This would not be a big deal if you could get a ticket some other way, but there is no other way. So, who do companies invite? The tame, the paid off, and the ones they know will give them good coverage.

PR does know who is guaranteed to give them good coverage, and who might be critical, aka honest, in non-PR speak. Hands up to anyone who thinks that potentially critical outlets will get near the place?

That is the downfall of E3.

There will be no criticism this year, there will be no one stepping out of line, there will be nothing but re-worded, gushing press releases. If you step out of line, want to bet you won't be coming back next year? Be good little tame journalist or be gone.

So, by trying to move things in the right direction, and I honestly think they were, E3 doomed themselves. They turned the world of gaming journalism, already one of the most horribly compromised and paid-off categories on the face of the planet, into a running joke. Well done.

When reading coverage of this year's release rewording, keep in mind that the people attending are only there because they were carefully vetted by the companies presenting. There will be no dissenting voices, and anyone who dares will probably be blacklisted. Kind of like US politics of late, eh? µ

(1) For the record, I didn't get one, but when I heard about it, I did inquire with one company, and then thought better of it.