WEBVTT - E3 Is Dead for Reals 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.360 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.680 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.759 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts. And how the 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.919 tech are you? So I read the news today. Oh boy, 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:27.560 technically I read it yesterday when all my troubles seemed 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:31.600 so far away, But I had already recorded yesterday's tech 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.680 News episode, so I couldn't include it in that episode. 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.519 But the news is that E three, also known as 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:43.360 the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is no more. It has ceased 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.000 to be. It has rung up the curtain and joined 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.720 the choir invisible as it were, or to be less 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:55.080 monty python ish about it. The Entertainment Software Association or 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:59.640 ESA has announced that E three will stop trying to 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:03.920 make three happened. It's like fetch, It's never happening. E 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:08.640 three is over now. Some people would argue that E 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:12.679 three had already died years ago, and that in the 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:17.040 years following it was just a shambling, zombie husk of 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.040 what it once was. So today I thought we would 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:24.160 do a very short overview of E three, why it 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:28.000 was a thing and why it's now no longer a thing, 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.160 and I have done lots of other episodes about E three, 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:35.399 including some deep dives on E three's history, so please 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.120 check the tech Stuff archives for other E three episodes 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.760 if you want to learn more. This is more of 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.920 a high level look at the event and what happened. 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:49.280 So here we go. Now. Before E three, which officially 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:52.720 began in nineteen ninety five, the video game industry found 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.880 it difficult to promote itself, and this was for a 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:58.880 whole bunch of reasons. So, first of all, back in 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.040 the nineteen eighties in the United States, there was this 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:07.720 massive industry wide video game collapse and it reset home 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.120 video game entertainment and made a lot of retailers wary 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:17.640 of another potential crash. It really set back specifically console games. 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:20.519 Here in the US. There was a general point of 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:25.040 view among much of the mainstream public that games were 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:29.400 for kids and really only for kids, and a lot 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.560 of people found it beyond belief that an adult would 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:36.720 actually like to play video and computer games. This meant 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:41.440 that when games began exploring material that wasn't suitable for kids, 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:45.200 there was a huge disconnect. You know, people were saying, 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:47.760 you can't make a game where one guy rips off 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.519 his face and breathes fire to torch another guy. These 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.880 are for kids. That was the sort of thinking that 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:57.960 was going on back then. In fact, that problem led 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:03.200 to the formation of the Entertainment Software Association itself, the ESA. 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:07.399 This is the organization that formally put on E three. Now. 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.120 At the time, it wasn't called the ESA. It was 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:15.480 called the Interactive Digital Software Association or IDSA, but eventually 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.919 it would change its name. So the game's industry needed 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:22.480 to create a review board that could assign maturity ratings 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.799 to game titles to let people know what ages are 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:30.880 appropriate for specific video games. If the industry could prove 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.639 that it could regulate itself well, that would help prevent 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:38.000 the US government from getting involved. So this was really 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:41.119 an act of self preservation in the video game industry, 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.600 and it was all made necessary largely because the US 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.640 government was mostly comprised of old poops who were totally 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.520 out of touch with the modern world. Some things never 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:55.120 seemed to change. So the Entertainment Software Ratings Board or 0:03:55.680 --> 0:04:01.000 ESRB became a thing, and the ESA, the organization behind it, 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:05.160 was a nonprofit. The ESA also would form working groups 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.400 to help tackle specific challenges in the home video and 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:13.720 computer game spaces, so stuff like intellectual property policies and 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.360 that kind of thing. E three would end up being 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.040 the main way that ESA would pay for all this activity. 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:25.440 It became a primary revenue generation kind of outlet, but 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.599 that wasn't the main purpose of E three. So the 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.680 main purpose outside of funding the ESA was to give 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.000 video game companies their own trade event where they could 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:42.280 speak directly to retailers and distributors and the press. They 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:46.200 could promote upcoming titles, they could make announcements, they could 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.600 provide people the chance to experience early builds of games 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.719 through demos. This meant that the companies wouldn't have to 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:57.440 accept the indignity of going to events like CES only 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:00.279 to get pushed out to a leaky ten in a 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.200 parking lot, because seriously, that's the sort of space these 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:08.480 companies would usually get assigned because no one in consumer 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:12.400 electronics actually respected the video game industry at the time, 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.479 so going to a big event like CES, it was 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.360 hard to get noticed and to stand out among every 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.280 other company at CES, and at the same time you're 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:27.640 in enduring really uncomfortable circumstances, all right, So E three 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:32.640 would become part promotional event, part networking opportunity, and part 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.159 revenue generator for the ESA. And then the ESA could 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.839 fund stuff like the ESRB and various working groups and 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.920 keep the entire industry safe from government intervention. So it 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:48.120 was a mutually beneficial system for everyone involved. But over 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.760 time potholes formed in the road for E three. It 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:56.880 got pretty wild pretty quickly, and this excess garnered attention. 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:01.200 E three started looking less like a professional trade industry 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:05.440 event and more like a wild Hollywood party with lots 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:09.039 of excess, and so the ESA tried to course correct, 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.279 but it used way too heavy of a hand. So 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.960 for a couple of years ethere was much much more subdued, 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:21.039 with individual sessions located in different hotels across town, and 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.400 gone was the party atmosphere, And gone too was a 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:26.919 lot of the appeal that brought people an attention to 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.400 the event in the first place. And so the ESA 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:33.920 course corrected again and a bit more party crept back 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:38.000 into the event. It wasn't as wild as the earlier days, 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.680 but it certainly wasn't as buttoned down as the more 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:45.680 restrictive years. But then another challenge began to emerge. See 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:48.280 some of the bigger companies started to realize that they 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:51.320 could hold their own event, and it could be a 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.000 physical event where people attend in person, such as Blizzard's 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.440 BlizzCon that started in two thousand and five. That allowed 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.680 the general public to purchase takes to this event, which 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:03.960 really set it apart from E three. E three was 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.839 still an industry only event, which meant to attend E 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.560 three you needed to be a game developer, a publisher, 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:15.000 a distributor, a retailer, or a journalist. The general public 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.400 was not allowed inside, although a lot of enterprising young 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:22.559 people would launch game focused blogs or websites or such 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.120 and they would gain access to E three that way. Anyway, 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:28.600 blizz Con was an early example of a company decided 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.640 to strike out and do its own thing and use 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:35.240 that as a promotional event for its various products. The 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.720 Internet also was really changing things up, so in the 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:43.240 mid nineteen nineties when E three first launched, the primary 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.960 media covering video games tended to be magazines, you know, 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:52.320 physical paper magazines with names like Nintendo Power or Game 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.320 Pro or Computer Gaming World. The Internet and the Web 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.440 were definitely things in the mid nineties. They exist, but 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:04.680 they hadn't saturated our world just yet, But by the 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.760 mid two thousands it became a different story, and upon 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.880 the rise of the consumer smartphone, things would really change quickly. 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:14.559 Folks turned to the Internet more and more for news 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.480 and entertainment, and this also meant it would become possible 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:21.280 for a video game company, particularly the larger ones, to 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.840 hold their own events digitally online and to control the 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:28.120 entire experience. See One of the downsides of E three 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:32.360 is that every company there is competing against everyone else 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.040 for attention. Usually, the big companies would have their own 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.560 presentations scheduled so that they weren't going up against anyone 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:42.720 else at that time. So Sony would have a press conference, 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:46.920 then later on Nintendo would have one, then Microsoft, et cetera. 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.800 Another downside is it was very expensive for these companies 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.120 to attend E three. They were spending millions of dollars 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:58.160 on presentations and booths. That's a lot of money. Yet 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.040 another is that E three happened on its own schedule, 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:04.200 regardless of how far along a company might be in 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.199 development of their next game. So imagine that you are 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.720 in charge of running a video game company and E 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.559 three is coming up, So you've got a new title 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.520 that's in development, but it's so early in the development 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.560 phase that it hasn't really coalesced into something that you 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:23.120 can talk about easily. So do you go to E 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.960 three with nothing new to show and just rely on 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.080 older titles that have already been released to kind of 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:32.040 carry you through? Do you not go and you're not 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.840 part of the conversation at all. Do you make a 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:39.040 guess as to where your barely formed game is heading 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.600 and then mock up something to show folks, And then 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.360 what happens if development takes a different turn and the 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.280 game you produce ends up being significantly different from the 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.840 preview you showed. It was a real problem. Holding your 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.800 own event would give you far more control, and you'd 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.480 have the spotlight all to yourself, and you wouldn't have 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.560 to worry about whether or not you quote unquote one 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:06.480 E three. So the transition of companies leaving E three 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.000 didn't happen all at once, but there were signs as 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:13.160 early as twenty eleven. That's where we'll pick up after 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:25.120 we take this quick break. So before the break, I 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.800 mentioned that in twenty eleven things began to change. That's 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:33.040 when Nintendo held its first Nintendo Direct Video News Conference, 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:37.480 and in twenty thirteen, Electronic Arts and Nintendo both chose 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:41.520 to forego a live stage keynote presentation, instead opting to 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:45.880 hold their own digital showcases around the same time as 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.720 the E three event. They did still maintain a presence 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.599 on the exhibition floor, so they still had booths and 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:55.280 stuff on the floor, but they didn't do a big 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:59.079 stage keynote, they didn't do a live presentation in front 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:03.280 of a live audience. Electronic Arts would further distance itself 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.680 from E three and twenty sixteen, and then Sony and 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.160 Microsoft began to hold their own events in order to 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.320 unveil hardware. They would just use E three to kind 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:16.040 of announce software. But then Sony announced in twenty eighteen 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:17.760 that it was not going to come back for E 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:23.640 three twenty nineteen or twenty twenty. In fact, nobody went 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.760 to E three twenty twenty because Covid took care of that. 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.800 Sony has been out of E three ever since. Nintendo 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.800 and Microsoft would announce earlier this year, back in January 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.080 in fact, that they were not going to go to 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:41.080 E three twenty twenty three, and again nobody would end 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:43.440 up going to E three twenty twenty three, because the 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.560 ESA chose to cancel the event because frankly, hardly anyone 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.200 was agreeing to show up to it. In fact, since 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:55.800 twenty nineteen, E three has only happened once, and that 0:11:55.960 --> 0:12:00.319 was a digital only event in twenty twenty one, twenty 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.680 two to twenty twenty three. All of those events were canceled. 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.480 Other things contributed to E three's decline. For example, in 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.520 twenty seventeen, the ESA chose to open the event up 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.079 to the public on a limited basis. They offered tickets 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.160 for sale for the public to attend E three, and 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:19.680 a lot of the industry folks found this really frustrating, 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:24.040 particularly the journalists, at least in my experience, because those 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.320 were the people I was hanging out with. And that 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.280 was because getting around E three and doing your job 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.160 got a whole lot harder when the general public was 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.880 taking up space. But the ESA was in a losing battle. 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:39.079 E three was becoming less relevant as more companies drifted 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.240 away and started to hold their own events. Now that's 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.400 not to say that everyone found E three to be irrelevant. 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:47.880 A lot of independent game developers used E three to 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.199 connect with media and with fans, and for a while retailers. 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:53.360 But that does bring us to another thing that has 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.400 changed dramatically since the founding of E three. So back 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.240 in the mid nineties, if you wanted to buy a 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.280 new computer or video game, then you, as a consumer 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.480 had to go to a store, probably a toy store 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:09.000 or maybe a big like electronics box store. You'd peruse 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.240 the aisles and you would look for the title you 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:13.560 wanted and you would hope it was in stock. But 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:16.800 these days, with digital distribution, buying a physical copy of 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.640 a game is far less common outside of cartridge based systems. 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.760 That change meant that the role of distributors and retailers 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:28.520 pretty much disappeared, so a big chunk of E three's 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:32.240 reason for being also went away. Meanwhile, you had folks 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:34.840 like Jeff Keeley, who once upon a time played a 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:37.720 very important part in E three, but then would go 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:40.840 on to launch their own events that would compete largely 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:44.440 in the same space. Keighley's Summer Game Fest has become 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:48.920 an alternative platform where developers can announce upcoming titles to 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:52.360 drum up excitement, and then the game Awards would also 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:55.439 become a place to promote upcoming games. Also, you know 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.760 you could hand out awards and stuff, but if you 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:02.040 saw this year's Game Awards, you know there was way 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:06.440 more focus on video game trailers and celebrity appearances than 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:11.320 on the actual awards and recipients. That might be a 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.160 little commentary from my point of view. Anyway, you could 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:19.680 argue that E three's relevance really faded away a few 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:24.240 years back. Actually, since only one event and a digital 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:28.000 only version of E three has happened since twenty nineteen, 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.240 I don't think it's even arguable. I think it's obvious 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:35.040 E three was no longer relevant. Now. That's not necessarily 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:38.480 a bad thing, at least not for the individual companies involved. 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.000 It can be bad for some of the independent companies. 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.720 It decreases the opportunities they have to get in front 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:47.640 of people. It can be really challenging for an independent, 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:52.200 a small independent developer to get that kind of attention. Sometimes, however, 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.080 it can partner with a larger company like a Microsoft 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:57.920 or a Sony and become part of a showcase for 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:01.560 one of their events, but it's still challenge. For the ESA, 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.560 the loss of E three could be a real headache 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.080 because now the organization will need to determine how to 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.920 manage funds to still fulfill its other functions. Like E 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:14.600 three was probably the most visible thing that the ESA did, 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:18.520 but that ESRB, that's still a thing that goes on, 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.800 and there are still these issues of the working groups 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:26.200 that try to help forge the video game industry stance 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:31.320 on important issues, so that's still a challenge. I didn't 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.480 even touch on some of the scandals around the ESA 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:39.920 itself because it's not like it is immune to well 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:43.880 to scandal. There are lots of them, in fact, including 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.320 the time that the ESA accidentally docsed hundreds of video 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:52.600 game professionals, particularly journalists. Yikes. In an era where there 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:57.360 have been death threats made against game developers and journalists 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:03.240 from extremes, I guess I should say it's bad to 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:07.440 have all your personal information revealed online, And yeah, the 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:12.040 ESA did that. It was a whole thing. Anyway, after 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:15.840 years of asking the question, is E three dead, we 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:21.440 can now say definitively yes, it is really most sincerely dead. 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.400 Does that mean it will never come back? Never say never. 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:29.840 I mean maybe sometime in the future someone will resurrect 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:33.040 the E three brand. I mean, people do love nostalgia, 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.160 after all, Whether it's the ESA or maybe some other 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.480 entity that purchases the rights to the E three name. 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:44.880 Maybe that will happen, But the original intent of E 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.360 three isn't really a thing anymore. Right. We don't have 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:53.080 the barriers to promote oneself that existed back in the 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:58.080 nineteen nineties. We don't have the retail and distribution channels 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:00.920 that we had back in the nineteen ninety so a 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.760 lot of the stuff that E three was trying to 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:08.320 address no longer is an issue. It's moot. So I 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.840 don't think we're gonna get an E three, at least 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:12.560 not the way we had in the past. Maybe we 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:16.440 get some sort of larger public facing event that's run 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:21.199 by a different organization, but I don't know. Anyway, you 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.359 could say that it really stuck around longer than was necessary, 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:28.520 but still farewell E three, Fair winds and following seas. 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:33.480 I only attended E three maybe three times total since 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.840 since I started working this job back in two thousand 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.680 and seven, so I am by no means a veteran 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:43.400 of E three, like I've only been a few times. 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:46.560 But I can say like there was some stuff that 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.320 happened to E three, like some of those presentations. They 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:53.160 were so wack adoodle weird that I do. I am 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:57.280 sorry that they're gone, because I mean, it was real spectacle. 0:17:57.359 --> 0:17:58.680 I will I don't. I don't know that it was 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.359 always effective in promoting a company or its video games, 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:06.560 but it was always worth talking about, not necessarily in 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:08.960 a positive way. But yeah, I kind of miss that 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.399 that's no longer a thing. I mean, you can still 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:15.240 sometimes see that in these individual companies events online, but 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:16.840 it's not quite the same because they're not trying to 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.920 outdo each other in the same space, so that takes 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:23.359 a big part of it out. Anyway, that's the update 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.080 on E three. As I said, you can go back 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.680 into the tech Stuff archives. There are lots of episodes 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.959 about E three. They go into much greater detail and 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:36.000 talk about the various changes that happened over the course 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:40.160 of its existence. But yeah, it's it's sad to say goodbye, 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.360 but I think it was pastime. I hope you are 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.920 all well and I'll talk to you again really soon. 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:57.760 Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.800 visit the iHeartRadio app, app podcasts, or wherever you listen 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:02.919 to your favorite shows.