My Thoughts on The Current State of E3

There was an article that I wrote long before I ever started posting on Steem, and this was back at in 2016 before the event became open to the public (I managed to go with a press pass with Basedgamer, a site that isn't around anymore), and the year Breath of The Wild had a playable demo up. The article itself was about the future of E3 centered around a conversation I had with a guy who showed up to E3 not as a game journalist, but a Market Analysis. We talked a bit, and according to him E3 was going to likely not be a thing in five years, and I'm going to talk about that and discuss the current events that have happened since. Note, it has been three years since then (Assuming I”m not off on the date, I do know it was the year Breath of the Wild was there.)

The big thing he mentioned as he talked was EA, as well as a couple of others, didn't actually have a big presence at E3 itself. The conferences they ran were not part of the main event because it was cheaper for them to run a separate event just before while getting just as much attention. The bigger E3 got the more the prices to operate at the main event became, and it got to the point there was a diminishing return on investment. There just wasn't any incentive to run at the main show, especially when a lot of big titles would be part of the Console press conferences anyway.

Talking a bit more about that, I brought up that even outside of the big conferences certain companies like Nintendo didn't really need E3 to promote their products at all. I stole this quote, I don't remember from who, but 'If Reggie announced he would be revealing the new Zelda game from a bathroom stall at an Arby's, all the same people are going to be there to hear what he has to say.” This was already becoming obvious as Nintendo had been putting less and less effort into their E3 conferences for some time.

And with more and more people getting info from the internet, the bigger the company the less need there was to put so much money into an E3 presentation regardless of size. As the years have crept on, the need for E3 has dwindled, and as we move further into the future we are seeing the need erode more and more.

Now that three years since that has passed, I think it's important to look to E3 to see where we are now and how accurate that prediction was. In truth, nothing has changed for Nintendo, who still just does their streamed presentations. Joining them appears to be EA who won't be holding a conference, and are just planning to live stream footage of their games. This is, quite frankly, something they don't even need E3 to do. They seem to be following in Nintendo's lead where it feels like they are doing it more out of obligation.

And despite my own predictions that Sony will start to see a decline in revenue for the Playstation, they are still a huge deal right now, so them pulling out of E3 this year is a big hit to the show. The current leader of the current console generation (Well, judging purely by hardware sales any way) is out, and the second biggest with Nintendo isn't really planning anything special at all, just talking about games they already have planned for this year.

And to keep talking about Nintendo, I think there latest outing with the Switch may be the biggest indicator of how irrelevant E3 is becoming. The company hasn't had a proper conference since 2012, and the news for the Switch came largely from Tokyo Gameshow and their own Nintendo Directs, almost nothing was showcased during any E3 outside of the playable Breath of the Wild Demo. And without any help from E3, we are seeing the Nintendo Switch becomes the biggest success in gaming right now. To be honest the only reason I think there aren't more Switches then PS4's out there is the PS4 has been out for about six years now, and The switch is just starting into its third year.

The only console manufacturer that is even giving a conference this year is Microsoft, and they are currently the worst off of the three consoles in terms of finance. Lifetime Sales of the Switch are practically the same, and the Switch's best selling games are all higher than their competition, despite not having the same amount of hardware out in the public.

This last bit is entirely anecdotal, but I don't see other gamers as excited for E3 either. The interest has been dwindling on my social media feeds year after year, and people are less and less excited about the announcements that come out of it. There is the occasional exception, but the general public just doesn't have the same reaction to E3 these days.

It's hard to say for sure what will happen, but that five-year prediction is becoming more and more likely each year that comes. I don't think it will be quite that soon, we are two years away from that, but I wouldn't be surprised to see E3 revert back to being a tech trade show like it used to be before it became the major gaming event it has been.