WEBVTT - The Obligatory “Is E3 Dead?” Episode – 2022 Edition 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:07.840 Welcome to text Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:14.520 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.280 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio. 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:20.760 And how the tech are you? Well, folks, it's time. 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:27.720 It's time for the obligatory is E three Dead? Episode edition? 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:31.360 And yeah, I thought we could chat about E three 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:35.519 the video game trade show and more recently fan Expo 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:40.000 that for the second time within three years, got completely 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:44.800 scrapped due to COVID and some other factors. The conference 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:48.440 has had some pretty major setbacks and controversies over the 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:52.519 last few years, and frequently journalists and analysts have been 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.800 left asking is E three still relevant? And have we 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:00.240 seen the last of E three? So today I thought 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.960 it would talk a little bit about what E three 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.840 is and where it came from. So why E three is, 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:10.520 or perhaps maybe why E three was and why things 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.399 are so different today apart from, you know, the obvious 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:17.000 case of the pandemic. So spoiler alert, it's not just 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.800 because of COVID, although obviously COVID plays a really big part. Okay, 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.560 So to understand E three, we first have to go 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.440 back to the early nineteen nineties, before there was a 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.600 dedicated video game trade show in the United States. In fact, 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.000 this was before there was even an organization that could 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.800 throw such an event. And we have to bring politics 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:41.480 into this as well, because, as it turns out, political 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.600 pressure is one of the factors that led to E 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.920 three even being a thing. So the early nine nineties 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.320 saw video games maturing. Actually maturing is kind of a 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.880 weird word to use. Video games were including more controversial material. 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:02.480 The video games of the eighties were largely tunish, unrealistic creations. 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:07.040 You know, pac Man's Ghosts were not particularly disturbing. Donkey 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:09.520 Kong was a tribute to King Kong, and while determined 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.200 to throw barrels at poor jump Man, who would later 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:16.960 evolve into Mario, he wasn't particularly concerning either. Heck, all 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.600 the earliest arcade games, I would have to say Frogger 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.360 was potentially the most upsetting because I hated seeing that 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.920 little green guy get smushed by a car. Anyway, my 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:30.040 point is that games couldn't be terribly explicit simply because 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.880 they lacked the fidelity to do that. You did have 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.760 occasional computer games that got a little bit racy, the 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.960 text based and titillating Lee titled The Leather Goddess of Phoebus, 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.880 pushed the envelope a bit, though honestly the game was 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:49.320 fairly tame, and the leisure suit Larry series indulged in 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:53.720 juvenile male fantasies, straight male fantasies, i should say, but 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:58.000 it featured really primitive graphics, so it wasn't, you know, 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:03.480 particularly explicit. It was explicit and intent, but the graphics 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.440 failed to be able to carry through that. So for 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:08.280 the most part, games were at least a couple of 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:12.359 layers of abstraction away from being realistic. And then as 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.440 hardware and software became more sophisticated, it became possible to 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:21.040 create more graphic content and there was a demand for 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.560 that kind of game, so game designers began to meet 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:29.320 that demand. One famous example of this was the Mortal 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.799 Kombat games. So fighting games were not a new thing, 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:37.000 but Mortal Kombat's focused on blood and violence, particularly with 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.240 the fatalities that gamers could pull off if they knew 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.280 the right combo to do. Those caught a lot of attention, 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.760 and on the more lascivious front, there were games like 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:50.960 night Trap, which was a full motion video game. Uh 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.560 full motion video is when you use actual video footage 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.120 within a game. And that game night Trap, it featured 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:02.040 you as player that's peeping in on a lot of 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:05.480 young women and a sleepover, running around in nightgowns. Now, 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.080 the point of the game was that you were ostensibly 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.680 trying to protect those young women from intruders who were 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.280 inside the house, but really most folks just focused on 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:16.520 the fact that you're kind of a peeping tom. The 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:21.080 game companies were thriving on controversy, as the concern over 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:24.200 the games would naturally lead to greater interest in those 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.000 games and sales numbers would go up. But that also 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:31.240 meant that lawmakers, particularly those who were the think of 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:35.000 the children type of lawmakers, were pretty certain that these 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:37.719 games were a harmful influence on the young. It's a 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.960 story that we've seen again and again, from Rock and 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.400 Roll to Dungeons and Dragons to video games, that you 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.359 know video games are somehow the domain of children, that 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.520 only children play video games, and that this content clearly 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:53.960 is not suitable for children. Now today, I think a 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.320 lot of folks are aware that video games are something 0:04:56.320 --> 0:05:00.080 that people of all ages enjoy, but I suspect are 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.480 still some fossils and leadership roles who can't get their 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:06.720 heads wrapped around that. Anyway, the US Congress was threatening 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.640 to set up a government agency that would assign essentially 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:13.880 decency ratings to video game releases. The video game industry, 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:18.440 in an attempt to sidestep governmental oversight, elected to create 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.080 its own ratings board. To do that, the industry first 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:26.320 formed an organization that originally was called the Interactive Digital 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.520 Software Association or i D s A. That group would 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:34.120 later in two thousand three, rebrand itself as the Entertainment 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:38.120 Software Association or e s A. And I'm just gonna 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:40.480 use E s A from here on out, but just 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.440 you know, be aware that before two thousand three it 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.240 was the I D s A. After two thousand three 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:50.200 it was E s A. Same organization though anyway, what 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:54.000 would become the E s A created the Entertainment Software 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.120 Ratings Board or e S r B. And it's this 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.799 group that evaluates games and assigns an appropriate age rating 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:03.680 to those video games. So it's a lot like the 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:07.239 mp A A, which does a similar thing for cinematic films. 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.080 Now let's finally get to some E three stuff. Now 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.440 I would argue there are two really big factors that 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:18.479 made E three necessary. One was that as a whole, 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.040 the video game industry didn't have the respect of the 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:26.560 broader tech sector. While video game companies would occasionally secure 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:30.080 a booth at other major general tech trade shows like 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.400 c e S, they were frequently pushed out of the 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.760 way of main show traffic. So there are famous stories 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.360 of companies in the games industry being forced to set 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.839 up in leaky tense out in the parking lot outside 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:45.680 the Las Vegas Convention Center with only access to like 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:48.960 porta potties and no access to food. And you know, 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:52.200 leaky tents are a bad shelter if you've got a 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.280 lot of television's computers and game consoles running in an 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.760 effort to show off various games. The video games industry 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.320 itself was actually picking up a lot of momentum, so 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.400 it seemed really insulting to these companies that they should 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:09.360 be pushed so far off the main show floor. Uh. 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.000 And you know, video games have been popular in the eighties, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.600 but that popularity was really starting to pick up in 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:18.640 the nineties, and yet publishers, distributors, developers, and others in 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.840 the business they didn't have trade show opportunities that would 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:26.080 help them do business and aid in discovery, you know, 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.240 using the press and media, and just generally achieve the 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.240 goals of your typical trade show. So there was a 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:36.400 need there. But another factor that made E three and 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.880 necessity is that something needed to foot the bill for 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:42.840 the s A and the E s RB. There needed 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.080 to be a way to fund the organization that existed 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.600 so that the games industry could keep the US government 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.160 off its collective back and a trade show could be 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:56.760 really profitable if run correctly. Game companies could spend bookoos 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.800 of buckos to get show floor space. You could charge 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.880 industry attendees a fee to get a badge that guarantees entry. 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:08.600 Press would be allowed free entry upon successful registration, as 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.480 the press would elevate everyone else at the show. So 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:15.120 there was this financial need for something like E three 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:19.360 as well. And so in nine the future E s 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.960 A would organize the very first Electronic Entertainment Expo, providing 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.960 an alternative to the summer session of ce S. Because 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:30.560 back in those days, c e S actually held two 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.000 shows a year. These days it has scaled down to 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.920 a single show held in January in Las Vegas, Nevada, 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:41.200 generally speaking, companies use E three to promote upcoming hardware 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.760 and video games, often splurging for massive press events that 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:48.400 stacked video game trailers and hardware demos to drive up 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:53.359 anticipation for upcoming releases. You also typically see celebrity cameos 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:55.760 in these where you get some celebrity to come out 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.240 and announce a game. You also see a lot of 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.120 cringe e kind of sketches and attempts at comedy. And 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:03.920 there have been a lot of big announcements at E 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.920 three over the years, including announcements for games and systems 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.480 that never actually came out, and then there are a 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:14.280 few that did come out but severely underperformed. I'm looking 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.640 at you, fall Out seventy six. Oh and initially there 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:21.160 was one other important element to E three. It was 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.520 an industry only event, so the only people allowed to 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.120 attend the show were people who were in the video 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:32.600 games industry or journalists who covered that industry. The general 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.320 public was not allowed entreat to E three, which of 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.920 course gave the event a type of exclusivity that made 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.439 gamers really want to go. So if you ever need 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:47.080 to have people really want to go someplace, just tell 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:49.920 them they're not allowed to go there. Piece of cake. 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:52.960 It takes care of itself. Now, we're actually gonna skip 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.600 around a bit in the history of the three because 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.240 I've already done some episodes about E three in the 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:02.400 past and covered the history in greater detail. So we're 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.080 going to talk about some big moments in E three 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:09.600 that threatened the show's existence. Because this is not the 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.959 first time people have asked the question, is E three doomed? 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:15.880 Is it not coming back? Uh? And I'm not gonna 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:19.240 dwell on disastrous press events like the ones that the 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.960 individual companies have held. There have been lots of those, 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:27.880 some combining you know, cringe worthy entertainment and wooden presentations 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:33.640 to lackluster response, and like, there are numerous press releases 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.480 that kind of vie for the title of worst E 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.720 three press release ever or press event ever. So those 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.160 definitely happened, and most of those press events had at 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:46.920 least a few low spots. Some of them had more 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.360 low spots than anything else, and those can stand out 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.439 as an embarrassing footnote in a video game company's history, 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.880 but they weren't really a threat to E three's very existence. 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.520 So while it would be fun to talk about really 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.880 big misfires and press event history and E three that's done. 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.240 What this show is really going to focus on. All right, 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.200 when we come back after this break, we'll talk about 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.840 some of the things that happened in E three's history 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:17.680 that really put it on unsure footing. But first these messages. 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:32.080 From the beginning, the E s A organizers chose the 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:36.680 Los Angeles Convention Center as the location for E three. However, 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:42.600 in the E s A move D three to my 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:47.760 hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, because well, in some accounts it's 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.200 because the l A Convention Center needed to have some renovations, 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:54.599 and in others it's because contract negotiations between the E 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.320 s A and the convention center had kind of fallen through. 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:00.440 So the move to Atlanta was a bump. Be one, 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:03.440 there were fewer exhibitors who would actually make the journey 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:05.840 out to Atlanta. There were a lot of companies that 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.839 had a West coast presence but not an East coast one, 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.360 and they just said, no, it's too expensive and difficult 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:13.440 to go all the way there and set up a show. 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:16.560 We're not gonna do it. And a lot of attendees 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.760 felt that the Atlanta show was just inferior to the 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.959 one in Los Angeles that was harder to navigate and 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:26.480 just less satisfying. So a stumbled that was that early 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.599 in E three's history was a bit concerning. However, E 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.840 three would recover and it would return to Los Angeles 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:37.439 in now from two thousand and six. The show grew 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:40.720 year over year, and as the show got bigger, companies 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.960 felt compelled to make a larger presence there. That meant 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.280 spending a lot more money. Companies would shell out huge 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:51.959 amounts to create spectacular booths and hold flashy press events 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:56.040 complete with celebrity cameos. I remember one year I went 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.680 and I saw the the booth for Fallout New Vegas, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.640 and I could only see it from the outside because 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:04.360 it was walled off and you had to have an 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:06.800 invite to go in, and I did not have an invite. 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:09.920 But man, there must have been a lot of money 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:13.640 spent just making that booth look so incredible. This was 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:17.280 also an era where you started seeing, you know, more 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:21.000 celebrity cameos, and there was this prevalent trend of hiring 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.720 young women to staff booths in an effort to entice 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:27.800 people to come into them because In these years, the 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.839 video game industry was still largely focused on catering to 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:37.960 young straight men, not entirely, but predominantly, and so this 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.320 was the so called booth Babe became a booth standard. 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.240 Just to be clear, I don't mean to diminish the 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.439 women who played that part. They were taking a gig, 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:50.360 and a gig is a gig. My judgment is more 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.760 toward the general trend of objectifying women for the purposes 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.440 of pulling in more foot traffic. Really objectifying women in general, 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.520 but specifically like using them as advertisement is to get 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.080 people to come into the booth. So my judgments not 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.640 aimed at the women themselves, but rather this kind of 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:13.640 objectifying tendency. Moving on, one challenge E three had early 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:18.480 on was in timing. The show Originally would happen in May, 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.160 so for a company to really take advantage of the three, 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.480 it needed to have something to show off at E three, 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.160 and a lot of video game companies really focus on 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.280 getting releases out so that they're available during the holiday 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:34.040 shopping season so late in the year, but that meant 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:36.920 that May was sometimes too early for companies to really 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.680 have something to show off. So E three would gradually 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.280 shift over to June to give the industry a little 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.120 bit more time to prep something, because there's nothing like 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:48.960 attending a trade show but having nothing to exhibit other 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.640 than games that have already released. By two thousand and six, 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:55.720 the E s A, because by now it was officially 0:14:55.760 --> 0:15:00.080 called that, was getting complaints from various game companies. Some 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:02.720 of those companies were threatening to drop out of future 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.560 shows because the costs were getting out of hand. E 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.640 three had become such a huge party of a show 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.920 that it was eating too much out of company budgets, 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:15.040 particularly for the larger companies that were competing against the 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:19.080 other larger companies. And so in light of these criticisms, 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:21.520 the E s A made the decision to scale E 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.320 three back dramatically. The two thousand seven show wouldn't happen 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.440 at the l A Convention Center at all. Instead, it 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.880 was moved out to Santa Monica, California, and would be 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.520 in several hotels as opposed to a central convention center. 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.040 The event itself adopted the name the E three Media 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.600 and Business Summit, which, hey, you know, that's one way 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.040 to take sexy out of the event. It also moved 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.720 to July. The e s A cap attendance to around 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.720 ten thousand people, which was a dramatic reduction from previous years, 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.200 And in two thousand eight, E three returned to the 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.760 Convention Center in Los Angeles, but was a much much 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.600 smaller event, with attendance capped to around five thousand people. 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:08.120 That party atmosphere was gone and costs were way down, 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.440 but interest in the event also dropped. There wasn't a 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:14.760 lot of media coverage, and big companies began to rethink 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:18.560 their objections to the extravagance of previous years. The E 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.640 s A received several new complaints, which I suspect is 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:26.800 exactly what they anticipated and in fact, is what they wanted. 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.000 After all, leading up to the two thousand six decision, 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:33.560 the E s A was raking in millions of dollars 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:38.320 through E three. It was an incredibly lucrative event, and 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.520 then with the big companies complaining and threatening to drop out, 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.680 that became an existential threat to E three because if 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.280 the big companies dropped out, well, other companies might follow 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.800 and E three would just cease to exist. So by 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:56.680 scaling way back and giving the big companies what they 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.040 asked for and thought they wanted, the E S He 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:02.800 was able to show that what those companies thought they 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:07.040 wanted wasn't actually what they wanted. If that was the 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:11.240 essays plan. It was a calculated risk that paid off, 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:13.600 But that really could have been the end of the 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:17.200 three right then and there. Now. One thing that did 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:19.679 shake E s A up a bit was that in 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:24.200 two thousand eight, Activision, fresh off its acquisition of Blizzard, 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:27.840 pulled the eject cord not just on E three but 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:31.160 also the E s A as well. Activision had been 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.760 one of the founding members of the E s A 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.560 back when it was the I D. S A. So 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:39.840 this was a big deal and it was a sign 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.520 of things to come. And in two thousand nine things 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:47.600 started heading back into the more splashy, extravagant, and more 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:52.280 importantly expensive direction for E three. I also think two 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.399 thousand nine was the first E three I attended, so 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.920 I went the year that it shifted back toward becoming 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:02.720 a big spectacle. For a few years, E three flourished, 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.639 but things began to shift as early as that was 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:11.200 the year that Nintendo changed it's E three strategy. Now, previously, 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.680 the company had done the usual routine, which involved holding 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.520 an in person live press event in front of an audience, 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.920 and you would have presenters revealing game trailers and footage, 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.320 and occasionally scripted conversations between people that was tried to 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:31.359 be passed off as like natural conversation that never worked, 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:35.679 by the way. Instead, Nintendo decided to go and present 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:39.880 digital pre taped segments, which makes sense. You have far 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.840 more control there, like you can do take after take 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:46.000 until you get it right. When it's live, you get 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.360 one shot, and if it went wrong, well that's that's 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:51.119 live theater for you. It's one of the things I 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.480 love about live theater. It's one of the things big 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:58.200 companies hate about live prece events because unless everything goes perfectly, 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.600 it could become a disaster. So this was the beginning 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.600 of what would become Nintendo Direct, and over time, Nintendo 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:10.359 would actually shift these digital presentations away from E three 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:15.040 timelines entirely, which freed up Nintendo to reach its audience 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:19.160 on the company's own schedule, rather than having to account 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:23.520 for a trade show schedule thrown by an independent organization. 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:28.639 In Electronic Arts or e A left E three and 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:32.919 started its own event held before E three would actually start. 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:37.240 So Electronic Arts had its own specific event catering to 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.320 e A's announcements, and I gave e A the chance 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.000 to really stand out without having to compete against all 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.600 the other companies, and so it could hold the spotlight 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:49.120 for itself. And e A was a big enough company 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:52.000 to pull this off. As we will see, this was 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.320 the beginning of a trend. We'll be back to talk 0:19:55.359 --> 0:20:09.040 about this more after these messages. Okay, So we talked 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:12.960 about how Activision had pulled out of E three, how 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:17.960 Nintendo gradually migrated away from E three, and how Electronic 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.160 Arts would do the same. Blizzard, which by this point 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:24.400 was part of Activision. Blizzard would also begin to sit 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.959 out E three. Since two thousand five, the company had 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:32.040 been holding its own fan event called blizz Con, and 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:36.840 slowly blizz Con became the main showcase for upcoming Blizzard titles. 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:41.080 So instead of revealing that stuff at E three, Blizzard 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:44.040 would reveal it at blizz Con in front of rabid 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:48.600 Blizzard fans because it was the best chance for getting 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:53.080 that big reaction that could help promote upcoming titles. Like 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:55.760 e A and Nintendo, Blizzard saw the value of catering 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.960 to its fans directly on its own schedule without the 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:03.320 distraction of other game companies vying for the spotlight. In 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:07.120 two thousand nineteen, we saw Sony pull out of E three. 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:11.840 That was a truly tremendous blow. For years, one big 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.480 discussion around E three was always around who quote unquote 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:20.560 one the show, and typically the conversation was did Nintendo, 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:25.600 did Xbox or did PlayStation win the show? Did Sony win? 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:29.720 Did Microsoft win? But by two thousand nineteen, Nintendo was 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.560 no longer really a prominent presence, at least not at 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:36.679 press events, and Sony was gone to Microsoft would remain, 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:40.359 and of course video game companies would still bring Nintendo 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:43.680 and PlayStation systems and games to the show in order 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:46.520 to demonstrate them. So it's not like you would walk 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:48.959 into E three and all you would see would be 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:53.080 PCs and xboxes. There were other systems there, but those 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.160 withdrawals stirred a lot of talk about E three kind 0:21:56.200 --> 0:22:00.280 of losing its purpose, that more and more company knees 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.560 were drifting away from E three. Now, something else that 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.159 cheesed off a lot of folks in the industry happened 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:09.119 in twenty seventeen. That was the first year that the 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:12.600 Essay decided to sell tickets for E three to the 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:16.399 general public. Now that first year they kept ticket sales 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:20.360 at fifteen thousand, and of course tons of people were 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:23.320 eager to get in there. They had seen the videos 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:28.040 of extravagant press releases with celebrity appearances. They'd seen footage 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:30.080 of folks getting to play games that the rest of 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:32.159 us would have to be, you know, waiting around for 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:35.879 months or years to try. And for two decades the 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:39.080 general public had been told it was not welcome to attend. 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:42.560 So of course those tickets sold out in a heartbeat. 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:46.960 But here's the thing. E three was not organized to 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:50.960 handle that kind of experience or traffic. That's not what 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:54.639 E three was built to do. There were other fans 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:58.439 centric events that were far better prepared and designed to 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:02.480 handle the general public. The Penny Arcade Expo later just 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:06.320 known as PACKS is a big one. PACKS events see 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:10.679 tens of thousands of attendees, and generally speaking, these events 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:13.440 have a reputation for being well organized and well run. 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:16.239 But E three was a different beast, and so a 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:19.400 lot of folks discovered their ticket really just gave them 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:22.000 the opportunity to wait in a line for four or 0:23:22.080 --> 0:23:25.840 five hours and order to play just about ten minutes 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:29.360 worth of video game content. It hardly seemed worth it, 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:32.440 but selling those tickets was a big source of revenue, 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:35.040 and the E s A was not going to stop, 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:37.000 nor was it going to put in the right amount 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:39.679 of time and effort to adjust the experience to better 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:42.879 suit an event open to the general public. So it 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:46.600 kind of shows the worst of both worlds. It alienated 0:23:46.640 --> 0:23:50.440 the industry attendees who found it increasingly difficult to navigate 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:54.120 the show floor, and it disappointed fans who had traveled 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:56.560 really long distances and spent a lot of money to 0:23:56.600 --> 0:23:59.960 attend an event that was pretty poor as a return 0:23:59.840 --> 0:24:03.800 on investment. There were other massive problems too. One of 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:06.720 those happened in two thousand nineteen when folks discovered that 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:11.480 the e ESA had been terribly negligent with attendee personal data. 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:14.000