Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech
Speaker 1: are you now? In case you're listening to this episode
Speaker 1: from the future, I hope things are going well there.
Speaker 1: It originally published on June twelfth, twenty twenty three. This
Speaker 1: week was supposed to serve as a triumphant return for
Speaker 1: one of the more famous tech conferences here in the
Speaker 1: United States, that of E three aka the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
Speaker 1: At least for most years. It was intended to happen
Speaker 1: from June thirteenth to the sixteenth, but earlier this year,
Speaker 1: the Entertainment Software Association or ESA announced that the event
Speaker 1: was not going to happen after all. Now, folks have
Speaker 1: been predicting the death of E three or a really
Speaker 1: long time now, like more than a decade, for lots
Speaker 1: of different reasons. And in the void left by E three,
Speaker 1: we've seen the rise of the Summer Game Fest held
Speaker 1: by Jeff Keeley. In fact, the twenty twenty three Summer
Speaker 1: Game Fest launched last week, and some game companies are
Speaker 1: still hosting streams showing off upcoming titles today and this week.
Speaker 1: But what the heck happened with E three? What caused
Speaker 1: that event to fall apart? And why were so many
Speaker 1: people not surprised by it? And could it actually be
Speaker 1: gone for good? Now, to answer those questions, we first
Speaker 1: need to remind ourselves about what E three is all
Speaker 1: about and why it exists in the first place. Then
Speaker 1: we can talk about some of the factors that have
Speaker 1: contributed to E three's decline in the industry. So first up,
Speaker 1: let's go back to that organization I had mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: the EESA. Now, the original name for that organization was
Speaker 1: the Interactive Digital Software Association or IDSSA, which launched in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four as a response to an existential threat
Speaker 1: to the video game industry, namely the United States Congress.
Speaker 1: For years, video games had been seen as being relatively simplistic.
Speaker 1: It was a common assumption among certain demographics of the
Speaker 1: population the video games were just toys, they're distractions for children,
Speaker 1: and that games are meant for kids. If you were
Speaker 1: over the age of fifteen and you admitted that you
Speaker 1: liked video games, you'd probably get some curious looks from
Speaker 1: older folks, and they might write you off as being childish.
Speaker 1: And so when it became obvious that video games had
Speaker 1: evolved well beyond pac Man and Cubert, some leaders got
Speaker 1: very concerned, very quickly, mostly because they were still operating
Speaker 1: under this mistaken assumption that all games are just for kids.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety two, we got the first Mortal Kombat game. Now,
Speaker 1: that game purposefully pushed the envelope when it came to
Speaker 1: depicting violence on screen, although by today's standards you would
Speaker 1: have to call it almost quaint in comparison, particularly if
Speaker 1: you compare it with more recent Mortal Kombat titles that
Speaker 1: go far, far harder when it comes to graphic violence
Speaker 1: and gore. But the Mortal Kombat, the original Mortal Kombat,
Speaker 1: absolutely horrified some of the more shall we say, reserved
Speaker 1: folks in Congress. And so there was this rising threat
Speaker 1: that the US government was going to create regulations for
Speaker 1: the video game industry and perhaps pass legislation that would
Speaker 1: severely hurt video game companies. To head off that possibility,
Speaker 1: the various major video game companies banded together and they
Speaker 1: formed an independent agency, which at that time was the IDSA,
Speaker 1: and I think it was two thousand and three when
Speaker 1: it would turn into the ESA. Now it would be
Speaker 1: this group's responsibility to represent the industry as a whole
Speaker 1: to lawmakers and to create a ratings system that the
Speaker 1: industry could apply to games, and that way they could
Speaker 1: avoid imperial entanglements, as ben Kenobi would say. To that end,
Speaker 1: the IDSA created the Entertainment Software Ratings Board or ESRB.
Speaker 1: This is kind of like a subcommittee. It's a board
Speaker 1: that evaluates upcoming video game titles and then assigns content
Speaker 1: and age ratings for those games. That way, the moms
Speaker 1: and dads out there won't be shocked when their little
Speaker 1: rugrats bring home a copy of Bayonetta and then they
Speaker 1: see that there's a woman in a latex body suit
Speaker 1: wearing eight inch stiletto heels doing splits all over the
Speaker 1: screen while shooting demons with guns that are strapped to
Speaker 1: our feet. That's, of course, assuming that the moms and
Speaker 1: dads out there actually paying attention to the ratings that
Speaker 1: are on these games, which frequently doesn't happen. But that's
Speaker 1: not the idsa's vault or the ESA's fault. We're talking
Speaker 1: these days. Now, What does this have to do with
Speaker 1: E three. Well. E three actually served a couple of purposes.
Speaker 1: One of those was to generate money that could pay
Speaker 1: the expenses of the ESA in general and the ESRB
Speaker 1: in particular. So about a little it's not quite half
Speaker 1: and half, but about half of the funding would come
Speaker 1: from dues that the various companies in the industry were
Speaker 1: paying to be part of the ESA, and the other
Speaker 1: half or so would be coming from E three, which
Speaker 1: would be this big exhibition and companies would pay to
Speaker 1: be a part of it, and E three would generate
Speaker 1: a lot of the revenue that would support the ESA
Speaker 1: throughout the year. However, that was just one reason for
Speaker 1: E three. The other reason for E three is that
Speaker 1: back in the mid nineties it was challenging for video
Speaker 1: game companies to get publicity. You know, there were magazines
Speaker 1: that covered the video game space, but they had limited
Speaker 1: reach and limited circulation. You could pay to have a
Speaker 1: space at CEES, that's the Consumer Electronics Show, but more
Speaker 1: often than not, video game companies found themselves shuffled off
Speaker 1: to a remote table, sometimes out in the parking lot
Speaker 1: under a tent, rather than being part of the convention
Speaker 1: hall itself. Plus, these companies were competing for attention with
Speaker 1: every other electronics company out there. That meant they were
Speaker 1: spending a lot of money to have a presence at
Speaker 1: an event where they were largely ignored by press and
Speaker 1: the event staff. There was very little return on investment.
Speaker 1: In other words, you felt like you were an outsider,
Speaker 1: even though by the rules you should be just as
Speaker 1: important as any other attendee at the exhibit. Of course,
Speaker 1: cees there's a scale for which you will be judged.
Speaker 1: Then the larger companies are spending way, way, way more
Speaker 1: money to have a very large presence on the floor itself.
Speaker 1: But that gets off track. Creating a separate trade show,
Speaker 1: one that would focus solely on companies in the video
Speaker 1: game space would give developers and publishers and hardware manufacturers
Speaker 1: a spotlight both for the media and to end up
Speaker 1: working with retailers to make sure that their products would
Speaker 1: be sold in stores. They would still have to compete
Speaker 1: with each other to get attention from the media and retailers,
Speaker 1: but it would still be far more focused than a
Speaker 1: general tech event. Now I have done full episodes about
Speaker 1: the history of E three, and a full detailed history
Speaker 1: is a real roller coaster. There were years that were
Speaker 1: legendarily influential and years where folks made some questionable decisions
Speaker 1: in an effort to promote a game, or a company
Speaker 1: or the event itself. And yeah, to go into it
Speaker 1: in detail would be a little repetitive of things have
Speaker 1: already done. But we're going to hit some of the highlights.
Speaker 1: So nineteen ninety five is when the first E three launched,
Speaker 1: and from ninety five to two thousand and six E
Speaker 1: three would grow. There were a couple of setbacks, but
Speaker 1: generally speaking, it grew year over year and became more
Speaker 1: and more extravagant, and as a consequence, it also became
Speaker 1: more and more expensive. Companies were shelling out big bucks
Speaker 1: for elaborate booth spaces. They would staff these booths with
Speaker 1: lots of really attractive people. This would be the era
Speaker 1: of the so called booth bases. These would be women
Speaker 1: who would be hired to wear costumes, often provocative ones,
Speaker 1: and to promote specific games and franchises. Not the most
Speaker 1: progressive of approaches, I have to say. Companies would host
Speaker 1: these huge parties and they would invite industry and media
Speaker 1: to attend them. And this was really before my time
Speaker 1: as a tech podcaster. So I never went to E
Speaker 1: three during this era. I heard about it, and it's
Speaker 1: probably for the best that I never went, because I
Speaker 1: am notoriously boring at parties. I am, I guess decent
Speaker 1: and one on one and small groups, But throw me
Speaker 1: in a party and it's just the worst. You might
Speaker 1: as well have just saved the invite for somebody who's
Speaker 1: more interesting and fun. But anyway, things were getting pretty
Speaker 1: rowdy over at E three and the attendee list was
Speaker 1: starting to include more non traditional media types. So early on,
Speaker 1: the people who were going to E three in the
Speaker 1: media side, they were journalists from like tech publications as
Speaker 1: well as larger media outlets. But as E three matured,
Speaker 1: so too did the web, and this brought a new
Speaker 1: breed of media, the blogger. Now, some of these bloggers
Speaker 1: were former journalists and reporters, and they had that background,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them were, you know, blogs that
Speaker 1: were run by a person who was hard working. They
Speaker 1: were enterprising, they were enthusiastic, but they didn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: that background in journalism or reporting. They were kind of
Speaker 1: a grassroots effort to build up a brand, and it
Speaker 1: was working, and more and more of them were attending
Speaker 1: E three. But that meant that at least among some people,
Speaker 1: there was this perceived decline in professionalism at E three,
Speaker 1: and that it was starting to turn more into a
Speaker 1: party atmosphere and less of a trade show. Worse, some
Speaker 1: of the companies that were exhibiting were starting to feel
Speaker 1: like all these ding dang bloggers were getting in the
Speaker 1: way of interacting with the folks who quote unquote really mattered,
Speaker 1: like the larger press outlets and retailers. So if you're
Speaker 1: spending all your time talking to Jimbob of jim Bob's
Speaker 1: Big Old Games blog, and it means you miss out
Speaker 1: on your chance to chat with Walt Mossberg of the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal. So I'm talking about back in the day.
Speaker 1: Mosburg doesn't write for the Journal anymore, but when he did,
Speaker 1: you know you wanted to get some time with him. Well,
Speaker 1: if it turned out that you were spending all your
Speaker 1: time talking with these much smaller media personalities, you would
Speaker 1: end up saying, why are we spending millions of dollars
Speaker 1: to not talk to the people who matter. The ESA,
Speaker 1: sensing that things were possibly starting to go south, made
Speaker 1: a bold decision, which was a decision to be less
Speaker 1: bold ironically, the E three events in two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven and two thousand and eight would be scaled back considerably,
Speaker 1: with the focus reverted to being about the business of
Speaker 1: video games, so it'd be much more reserved and professional
Speaker 1: or boring if you prefer, and the attendees list would
Speaker 1: be restricted accordingly. Suddenly all those bloggers found it impossible
Speaker 1: to attend, their applications would be denied. While E three
Speaker 1: had a couple of hiccups before this change in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, I really think it was the two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven in two thousand and eight years for
Speaker 1: E three that started to prompt people to predict E
Speaker 1: three was on the way out there. Like I said,
Speaker 1: had been a couple of hiccups earlier. There were a
Speaker 1: couple of times where E three had to move. In fact,
Speaker 1: it moved to Atlanta, Georgia. I was not in the
Speaker 1: industry at the time, so I didn't attend, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that it was just down the street from me.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was. It moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and
Speaker 1: attendance plummeted because a lot of people were located out
Speaker 1: west and they didn't want to take the journey all
Speaker 1: the way east to attend E three. So yeah, there
Speaker 1: were a couple of times before two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: where things were a little slow, but generally speaking, up
Speaker 1: to two thousand and seven, E three was just growing
Speaker 1: and growing and growing, and that meant that when the
Speaker 1: ESA decided to cut way way back on the excess
Speaker 1: of E three, it prompted the doom and gloom soothsayers,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't over just yet. We're going to take
Speaker 1: a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk more
Speaker 1: about E three's journey toward cancelation. Okay, before the break,
Speaker 1: we were talking about how the ESA decided to make
Speaker 1: E three more professional in two thousand and seven, two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, they cut way back on the event.
Speaker 1: They spread the event across multiple locations in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: they restricted media access to just a couple of outlets,
Speaker 1: and this, like I said, prompted some people to say
Speaker 1: it was the beginning of the end for E three,
Speaker 1: And you could kind of see why. The change meant
Speaker 1: that the media presence at E three was much much smaller,
Speaker 1: and that meant consumers weren't really getting a look at
Speaker 1: upcoming titles the way they had been in just the
Speaker 1: previous couple of years, so consumers weren't really getting excited.
Speaker 1: They didn't have anything to be excited about. They didn't
Speaker 1: have this big event to talk about, and that change
Speaker 1: would then affect the video game companies as well. So
Speaker 1: once again, the essay received pressure from multiple parties, from
Speaker 1: video game companies, from media outlets, from retailers too, to
Speaker 1: change the event. Again, the argument was that the ESA
Speaker 1: had overcorrected in an attempt to inject professionalism in E three.
Speaker 1: Soh the ESA started easing back into more of what
Speaker 1: E three was like before two thousand and seven, and
Speaker 1: this would start in two thousand and nine. The organization
Speaker 1: tried to manage the events growth. They capped attendance. They
Speaker 1: didn't want A three to just explode to a point
Speaker 1: where it was an unmanageable, chaotic mess. But they also
Speaker 1: didn't want it to feel so buttoned down and restrictive,
Speaker 1: so they started to allow some bloggers and podcasters to
Speaker 1: attend as media. That's how I would end up going
Speaker 1: back in the day. In fact, I think my first
Speaker 1: E three was two thousand and nine, although I could
Speaker 1: be wrong about that. I'm really terrible at remembering specific
Speaker 1: dates of things. That I've gone to, but it was
Speaker 1: definitely after the two thousand and seven two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight scaling back session. But the general public still would
Speaker 1: not be part of the E three experience, not yet. However,
Speaker 1: during the time, web technology was reaching a point where,
Speaker 1: at least for some companies, there began to be a
Speaker 1: new question, which was does it even matter if we
Speaker 1: attend E three? Does our participation mean anything now? For
Speaker 1: smaller companies the answer was clearly yes. The independent developers
Speaker 1: out there did not have the massive presence or platform
Speaker 1: from which they could communicate directly to the public. They
Speaker 1: didn't have that kind of space. But for some of
Speaker 1: the really big companies out there in the video game space,
Speaker 1: like EA aka Electronic Arts, there was no reason to
Speaker 1: adhere to the schedule of E three. You could just
Speaker 1: hold your own event, and you could do so on
Speaker 1: your own terms. You could dictate the schedule, you could
Speaker 1: end up making sure you're not competing with anyone else
Speaker 1: who's in your space, and so they opted to do that.
Speaker 1: They pulled out of E three. Now you could see
Speaker 1: how this could have a huge, huge benefit to a
Speaker 1: company like EA if your publicity plans HINGE on E three. Well,
Speaker 1: then you have to get your projects into some sort
Speaker 1: of presentable format by the time that event rolls around,
Speaker 1: and you have no say in the timing of that event.
Speaker 1: Right they've organized it, you know what the deadline is.
Speaker 1: You can't move it, so you have to work according
Speaker 1: to their schedule. That might mean putting together a demo
Speaker 1: that ends up not even being a good representation of
Speaker 1: the end product. You know, there's been that in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases where people have presented cinematics representing a
Speaker 1: game and it turns out the actual game looks drastically
Speaker 1: different when it's in playable form. But that's kind of
Speaker 1: the stuff that would happen when you don't have the
Speaker 1: power to control the event itself. Plus you're still competing
Speaker 1: with all the other companies in the industry at E three,
Speaker 1: so you might be figuratively killing yourself to get a
Speaker 1: really good demo or presentation together, and you still face
Speaker 1: the possibility that not very many people are going to
Speaker 1: see it because they all ended up going to a
Speaker 1: competitor's keynote presentation instead. But if you hold your own event,
Speaker 1: you can schedule it in your own time. You can
Speaker 1: make sure that you're not overlapping with competitors. That guarantees
Speaker 1: more of the spotlight for yourself, and these days video
Speaker 1: games are much more high profile. So back in the
Speaker 1: nineties you might have had to tempt some random reporter
Speaker 1: into your booth just to get them to consider covering
Speaker 1: your project. But by the late two thousands, video games
Speaker 1: have become an undeniably huge business and there was no
Speaker 1: shortage of coverage from mainstream media as well as smaller
Speaker 1: independent outlets. In fact, these days, you can put out
Speaker 1: a pre taped presentation on YouTube and then you can
Speaker 1: just count on numerous YouTubers to do reaction videos to
Speaker 1: your present and that spreads your marketing message further, and
Speaker 1: all without you having to even pay for it. It's
Speaker 1: a totally different world now. I cannot point to a
Speaker 1: single year and say this is when it became clear
Speaker 1: that E three's importance as far as promoting games had
Speaker 1: faded away, with one possible exception, but we'll get there,
Speaker 1: because it was really more of a gradual decline. It
Speaker 1: didn't happen at the same speed for every company I
Speaker 1: did mention. Electronic Arts pulled out fairly early, but it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the only company others would follow suit. You
Speaker 1: had Nintendo that would withdraw from E three and just
Speaker 1: hold its own Nintendo Direct event. You would have Activisions
Speaker 1: step away. Then more recently, Sony would step away from
Speaker 1: E three entirely to hold its own event. Other video
Speaker 1: game publishers did the same. Some of them became known
Speaker 1: for their own in person events, like Blizzard held BlizzCon,
Speaker 1: and that was a very well known event still is
Speaker 1: a very well known event. So you could say that
Speaker 1: the video game industry had largely outgrown the need for
Speaker 1: E three, at least from the promotional standpoint right. And
Speaker 1: on the retail side, things had changed dramatically as well.
Speaker 1: So back in the nineties you really needed to form
Speaker 1: those strong relationships with retailers. You needed to make sure
Speaker 1: that your games were being carried and best Buy and
Speaker 1: in various retail establishments in malls whose names I totally
Speaker 1: forget now because it's been so long since those even existed.
Speaker 1: But today it's a totally different world. The name of
Speaker 1: the game now is really digital distribution. Yes, there are
Speaker 1: still companies making physical media, and you can buy physical
Speaker 1: copies of games, at least some games, but more often
Speaker 1: than not, people are buying games through an online store
Speaker 1: like Steam or Epic, or even just a proprietary store
Speaker 1: run by the video game publisher. But you're not having
Speaker 1: to go through a retailer anymore, and that has changed
Speaker 1: dramatically so that part of E three is no longer
Speaker 1: as relevant. However, we're not yet done with E three,
Speaker 1: so in twenty sixteen, the ESA decided to dip its
Speaker 1: toe into the thought of opening up E three to
Speaker 1: the public. Now, it didn't really go whole hog. In fact,
Speaker 1: it kept E three insulated from the public, but instead
Speaker 1: they set up a smaller space where the general public
Speaker 1: could go. They kept a tight cap on attendance, but
Speaker 1: it was free to go, and the ESA didn't really
Speaker 1: have experience in creating public facing events that you might
Speaker 1: find at something like PACKS. Packs from the very beginning
Speaker 1: was considered as a public facing event. Originally PACK stood
Speaker 1: for Penny Arcade Expo, and it was into to be
Speaker 1: a gaming oriented event, whether that would be video games
Speaker 1: or tabletop games, all sorts of games. That was the
Speaker 1: whole intent of PACKS, and it grew and grew and
Speaker 1: grew to the point where it rivaled and in some
Speaker 1: cases got larger than E three and it was run
Speaker 1: in a very different way. Well, the ESA didn't have
Speaker 1: that experience, and a lot of attendees found that despite
Speaker 1: the fact that the ESA was capping attendance, it still
Speaker 1: was a very crowded space. It was hard to get
Speaker 1: any appreciable time on popular titles, and you know, it
Speaker 1: just wasn't fun. You were standing in line for a
Speaker 1: lot of the time. You might get to play a
Speaker 1: game for about five or ten minutes, and then you
Speaker 1: had to go and stand in another line. By the way,
Speaker 1: it was not that much different for media back in
Speaker 1: the day. If you were important enough media, then you
Speaker 1: could essentially get a skip to the head of the
Speaker 1: line pass. But otherwise you'd be waiting in that line
Speaker 1: with everybody else, trying to get some time on a
Speaker 1: title so you could form some impressions on it. It
Speaker 1: was not the most efficient or fun experience. I mean,
Speaker 1: it could always be exciting to get a chance to
Speaker 1: play something that was you know, not even released yet,
Speaker 1: but beyond that that, that initial little burst of dopamine
Speaker 1: was not enough to keep you going as you're waiting
Speaker 1: for you know, hour number two to try the new
Speaker 1: God of wargame for five minutes Meanwhile, the industry and
Speaker 1: media attendees were looking at the general public the way
Speaker 1: everyone else had been looking at bloggers back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, you know, kind of with that snobby
Speaker 1: look that people get. And I'll admit it, I was
Speaker 1: one of those snobby people. But I wasn't so much
Speaker 1: saying like, oh, the commoners have arrived. Instead, I was
Speaker 1: just finding it harder and harder to cover E three
Speaker 1: professionally because more folks were showing up and crowding up
Speaker 1: the space. That crowding really began in twenty seventeen, because
Speaker 1: that's when the ESA did start selling tickets to the
Speaker 1: general public. They had a limited number, I think it
Speaker 1: was like fifteen thousand that first year, but they were
Speaker 1: selling those tickets and that gave them access to the
Speaker 1: actual show floor. It was no longer a separate space.
Speaker 1: If it had been a separate space, then it wouldn't
Speaker 1: have had a big impact on the experience inside the
Speaker 1: show itself. But you had the general public mingling with
Speaker 1: industry and media and it just made it harder to
Speaker 1: get around and harder to get access to anything. So now,
Speaker 1: on one hand, you could see the ESA's dilemma, right
Speaker 1: because companies were starting to bow out of E three,
Speaker 1: and the ESA had depended in part on those companies
Speaker 1: paying to be part of the E three event and
Speaker 1: to drive attendance to E three. So money was effectively
Speaker 1: leaving E three because these big companies were starting to
Speaker 1: pull out and hold their own events. So the ESA
Speaker 1: had to come up with a new strategy, which might
Speaker 1: be one reason they chose to sell tickets. Those tickets
Speaker 1: weren't cheap, by the way. In twenty seventeen they went
Speaker 1: for two hundred and fifty bucks a pop, though I
Speaker 1: think the Early Bird Special dropped that down to a
Speaker 1: cheap one hundred and fifty right, still princely sum if
Speaker 1: you ask me one hundred and fifty bucks so that
Speaker 1: you can stand in line for ninety five percent of
Speaker 1: the time and the other five percent of the time
Speaker 1: you're actually playing games. That's a steep price, if you
Speaker 1: ask me now. The ESA would repeat this strategy in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, and E three grew in size,
Speaker 1: but each year there were more articles and think pieces
Speaker 1: about whether or not E three was even relevant for
Speaker 1: the video game industry anymore. More and more companies were
Speaker 1: pulling out, and there were more and more complaints about
Speaker 1: the event being crowded with people who were part of
Speaker 1: the general public and not actually part of the industry
Speaker 1: or the media. Some people thought that perhaps E three
Speaker 1: would transition from an industry event to a pure public
Speaker 1: facing one that rather than being geared toward pairing publishers
Speaker 1: with retailers, which really again was not a consideration anymore
Speaker 1: in the era of digital delivery, and from being a
Speaker 1: media event, which it kind of still was, but it
Speaker 1: was a very different kind of experience at this point,
Speaker 1: and then changed to be something where people can come
Speaker 1: in and get a chance to play some games that
Speaker 1: are in development and have one on one face time
Speaker 1: with people who are in the industry or whatever, but
Speaker 1: it specifically being for that purpose, so it would be
Speaker 1: a completely retooled approach at that point, but they hadn't
Speaker 1: done that yet, and meanwhile, the ESA had some crises
Speaker 1: on its hands. So one was when the agent, the
Speaker 1: ESA's president second president ever, Mike Gallagher, left the organization,
Speaker 1: so he had led the ESA since two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: He took over for Doug Lowenstein, who had been the
Speaker 1: founder of ESA and the first president of the organization.
Speaker 1: So Gallagher saw E three go from trying to be
Speaker 1: all business to pivoting back to a slightly scaled down
Speaker 1: but still rather extravagant version of the Crazy Days. He
Speaker 1: also led the organization as E three offered tickets to
Speaker 1: the public. But then the curtain got pulled back a
Speaker 1: little bit and things started to look really awful behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. So Gallagher would step down from his position
Speaker 1: toward the end of twenty eighteen, and in the process
Speaker 1: it got a lot of attention from the media. There
Speaker 1: were allegations that Gallagher had fostered a toxic work environment
Speaker 1: at the ESA, and that he was pitting employees against
Speaker 1: one another to curry favor with the boss. And his
Speaker 1: thought was that by making people work against each other
Speaker 1: and come against each other, you would get the best work, right,
Speaker 1: But in the process you're destroying your staff. And it
Speaker 1: did sound like a lot of the accounts, which weren't
Speaker 1: from Gallagher himself, they were from you know, mostly anonymous sources.
Speaker 1: We're saying that Gallagher, or at least implying that Gallagher
Speaker 1: was on sort of a power trip, that it was
Speaker 1: this kind of sadistic glee of making people, you know,
Speaker 1: undercut one another in order to get ahead. There's a
Speaker 1: piece of variety about this that makes it sound like
Speaker 1: working at the ESA during this time would be a
Speaker 1: bit like if you were leading one of the minor
Speaker 1: houses in Game of Thrones. You're really just trying to
Speaker 1: hold things together in your team without getting the attention
Speaker 1: of one of the more power hungry houses out there,
Speaker 1: and winter is coming. There were also accusations that Gallagher
Speaker 1: was showing favoritism toward a particular employee. I couldn't find
Speaker 1: a lot of details about this, but it did sound
Speaker 1: like one person was being held out for special favor
Speaker 1: while everyone else was suffering, and that made things worse.
Speaker 1: So apparently Gallagher left the ESA after the board for
Speaker 1: the ESA decided to hold some one on one interviews
Speaker 1: with various staff members to investigate some of the complaints
Speaker 1: that were rising up through the organization. So Gallagher tindered
Speaker 1: his resignation. I don't know if he was asked to resign,
Speaker 1: but if he wasn't, I'm sure that was just a
Speaker 1: matter of time because from what I understand, it was
Speaker 1: untenable for him to maintain his position. The board was
Speaker 1: just not going to allow it. Now I've never met Gallagher.
Speaker 1: I haven't taught to anyone who did work for Gallagher.
Speaker 1: At least if I have, we didn't talk about this,
Speaker 1: so I don't have first or secondhand information about this,
Speaker 1: but from everything I've read, it does sound like it
Speaker 1: was miserable to work under his direction. His departure, however,
Speaker 1: meant that the ESA suddenly was without a leader or
Speaker 1: a coherent vision of where to move forward. And apparently
Speaker 1: about half of the leadership in the ESA either quit
Speaker 1: or was fired in the six months following Gallagher's departure,
Speaker 1: which is a big ol' yikes. Now we're going to
Speaker 1: take another break. When we come back. E three still
Speaker 1: isn't dead even yet at this point in our story.
Speaker 1: We will talk more about what happened after these messages. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back. So, while the Gallagher fallout was going on
Speaker 1: at the ESA, there still needed to be an E
Speaker 1: three in twenty nineteen, but that event would have its
Speaker 1: own crisis, this time in the form of a data leak.
Speaker 1: So it was discovered that the EAA had accidentally linked
Speaker 1: a database containing attendee information through the ESA website itself.
Speaker 1: In other words, it was possible to access this database
Speaker 1: of attendee info, which held like two thousand entries of
Speaker 1: personal information, including things like addresses and phone numbers and
Speaker 1: email of all these different attendees. So anyone who was
Speaker 1: able to go to ESA's website could potentially find themselves
Speaker 1: accessing a database with all this private information. And we're
Speaker 1: talking about some high profile folks who are on that list,
Speaker 1: like prominent social media influencers and really important games journalists.
Speaker 1: And you also have to remember this is twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: so just a few years earlier, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: there was gamer Gate, a truly terrible, terrible period of
Speaker 1: harassment and abuse that was done in the name of
Speaker 1: calling out for better video games journalism, but that was
Speaker 1: really more of a smoke screen and was mostly about
Speaker 1: intimidating people you didn't like and harassing them in terrible ways.
Speaker 1: So in the wake of that, the fact that that
Speaker 1: had just happened a few years earlier, and in the
Speaker 1: very industry that you are you are in as an
Speaker 1: influencer or video game journalist, obviously finding out that your
Speaker 1: private information was publicly accessible is not going to fly
Speaker 1: well for you. You're going to have some opinions about the
Speaker 1: organization that allowed that to happen. Now, the ESA did
Speaker 1: remove access to the data. Actually I had to do
Speaker 1: it twice because it turned out there was another way
Speaker 1: to access even more information. But obviously the damage had
Speaker 1: been done. You know, information had already leaked out. A
Speaker 1: lot of people in that space reported that they were
Speaker 1: on the receiving end of harassing phone calls and things
Speaker 1: of that nature. And worse, So, now media and influencer
Speaker 1: were being wary of E three. They got burned by
Speaker 1: the ESA. So you had these big companies that were
Speaker 1: all pulling out of E three in favor of holding
Speaker 1: their own separate events or joining together on an alternative
Speaker 1: event like Summer Game Fest. And then you had the
Speaker 1: media second guessing their involvement because you know, getting docsed sucks.
Speaker 1: And then twenty twenty happened, and y'all all remember that, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, the pandemic hit and then beginning with south
Speaker 1: By Southwest and then stretching throughout the year, we saw
Speaker 1: in person conferences cancel one after another, including E three.
Speaker 1: So this situation really drove home to video game companies
Speaker 1: that having your own event, even if it's just digital
Speaker 1: and a virtual event it's not held in person. It
Speaker 1: is important if you want to make announcements, and depending
Speaker 1: upon a third party is always risky because you could
Speaker 1: find yourself without a platform through no fault of your own.
Speaker 1: This is also why you know I always tell content
Speaker 1: creators that it's good to diversify where your content goes,
Speaker 1: because if you count on just one place where your
Speaker 1: content lives, if something happens to that place, if you
Speaker 1: don't control that place and they make a change, you
Speaker 1: end up suffering from that. We see it a time
Speaker 1: and again on YouTube. Whenever YouTube changes their monetization policies,
Speaker 1: Like every time that happens, lots of people end up
Speaker 1: suffering consequences. And one way to try to mitigate that
Speaker 1: is to make sure you're not putting all your eggs
Speaker 1: in one basket. Now, the pandemic forced companies to come
Speaker 1: up with their own strategies, and that would mean there'd
Speaker 1: be even less of a reason to depend upon E
Speaker 1: three itself. Twenty twenty was actually when we did get
Speaker 1: the first Summer Game Fest, when Jeff Keeley put that together,
Speaker 1: because there was this void since E three wasn't happening.
Speaker 1: Plus at the same time we were seeing tons of
Speaker 1: concer solid in the video game space. Companies were gobbling
Speaker 1: one another up, with Microsoft rushing bullishly forward and leading
Speaker 1: the pack. And of course we're still waiting to find
Speaker 1: out what's going to happen with Microsoft's planned acquisition of
Speaker 1: Activision Blizzard. But that's a great example of there were
Speaker 1: actually fewer big parties involved because there was all this consolidation,
Speaker 1: and it meant that there were fewer companies that needed
Speaker 1: to rely on an event, and an event like E
Speaker 1: three because they were part of a bigger organization that
Speaker 1: could hold its own event. Now, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: there are still smaller video game companies. They still do exist,
Speaker 1: and they would still benefit from being elevated on a
Speaker 1: larger platform. But a lot of the mid sized companies
Speaker 1: found themselves absorbed by the larger ones and the playing
Speaker 1: field became more sparse. So there was no E three
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty at all, either in person or digital.
Speaker 1: The ESA scrambled to figure out a contingency plan for
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, and what came up with was a
Speaker 1: digital only presentation, so there would be no in person
Speaker 1: gathering for twenty twenty one, And they also said E
Speaker 1: three that year stood for Electronic Entertainment Experience rather than EXPO,
Speaker 1: because it's not much of an expo if it just
Speaker 1: involves watching a pre recorded digital presentation. The ESA hoped
Speaker 1: to bring E three back in person for twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: but COVID still presented a considerable challenge. The ESA made
Speaker 1: the call in early twenty twenty two to cancel the
Speaker 1: in person event, but they said, quote due to the
Speaker 1: ongoing health risks surrounding COVID nineteen and its potential impact
Speaker 1: on the safety of exhibitors and attendees, E three will
Speaker 1: not be held in person in twenty twenty two end quote.
Speaker 1: But they stressed that this was not the end of
Speaker 1: E three itself, and that quote, we remain incredibly excited
Speaker 1: about the future of E three and look forward to
Speaker 1: announcing more details soon end quote. This is where I
Speaker 1: would insert Ron Howard's narrator voice from Arrested Development, and
Speaker 1: I would have him say they would not announce more
Speaker 1: details soon now. In early twenty twenty two, there was
Speaker 1: still hope that the ESA would try to do something
Speaker 1: like it had the year before with a digital only experience,
Speaker 1: but by late March twenty twenty two, the ESA made
Speaker 1: it clear that there would be no event at all,
Speaker 1: digital or otherwise Will Powers, a PR rep for the company,
Speaker 1: Razor broke this news on Twitter and revealed that he
Speaker 1: had received an email that confirmed E three had been
Speaker 1: totally canceled for twenty twenty two. The ESA later released
Speaker 1: a statement that said quote, we will devote all our
Speaker 1: energy and resources to delivering a revitalized physical and digital
Speaker 1: E three experience next summer. Whether enjoyed from the show
Speaker 1: floor or your favorite devices, the twenty twenty three showcase
Speaker 1: will bring the community, media and industry back together in
Speaker 1: an all new format and interactive experience. We look forward
Speaker 1: to presenting E three to fans around the world live
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles in twenty twenty three. End quote. I
Speaker 1: need another Ron Howard bit for this too. He should
Speaker 1: say something like they did not do that, or you
Speaker 1: know something that's funnier than that. Anyway. Yeah, the messaging
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one was that there would be an
Speaker 1: in person event again in twenty twenty two. Then the
Speaker 1: ESA had to reverse course on that. They said their
Speaker 1: concern was for COVID. Now, I think that's a legitimate
Speaker 1: thing to be concerned about. However, I also don't think
Speaker 1: that's the real reason they canceled in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: I suspect the real reason was that the ESA was
Speaker 1: finding it challenging to secure exhibitors for the event, either
Speaker 1: in reality or virtually, that more and more companies were like, no,
Speaker 1: I think we're good, and that it just got to
Speaker 1: a point where there was so few big names on
Speaker 1: the list that there was no way to hold an event.
Speaker 1: There were not enough attractions to hold an event, and
Speaker 1: that's why it got canceled. That's what I believe. But
Speaker 1: you also still had ESA saying stay tuned, we have
Speaker 1: more to say, and then they went radio silent for months.
Speaker 1: Then when they did speak, they said, okay, well, now
Speaker 1: there's no event at all in twenty twenty two, but
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three is going to be bigger and better
Speaker 1: than ever. And then this past March we got confirmation
Speaker 1: that there would be no E three this year either,
Speaker 1: which I think a lot of people already suspected, but
Speaker 1: then it was confirmed by the end of March this year.
Speaker 1: So what happened, Well, I think the major reason for
Speaker 1: E three's cancelation is a lack of participation among big
Speaker 1: video game companies too. Many have forged their own strategies,
Speaker 1: or they've signed on with Jeff Keeley and the Summer
Speaker 1: Game Festival to promote upcoming video game titles. They've outgrown
Speaker 1: the usefulness of E three. It represents too small of
Speaker 1: a return on investment. Many companies declined the invitation to
Speaker 1: participate in E three. A lot of them agreed to
Speaker 1: initially and then chose to pull out, And that lack
Speaker 1: of commitment, I think meant that E three could not
Speaker 1: be anything other than a disaster. So rather then throw
Speaker 1: an event that would be held up to ridicule and disappointment,
Speaker 1: the ESA chose to cancel it outright, and I think
Speaker 1: that's probably the better move of the two. It's better
Speaker 1: to go ahead and cancel it completely than to say,
Speaker 1: here are the three video game companies that you've never
Speaker 1: heard of and games that you may or may not
Speaker 1: be interested in, and then that's all we have to
Speaker 1: show you. But does that mean E three is gone
Speaker 1: for good? I I'm not entirely sure. I think the
Speaker 1: old format of E three is dead. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's coming back. I don't think it can. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's a purpose for it, and if there's no
Speaker 1: purpose for it, then no one's going to pay for it.
Speaker 1: So the ESA tried to hype up twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: before canceling, and then punted the ball down the field
Speaker 1: to hype up twenty twenty three before canceling. But they've
Speaker 1: learned their lesson. They are not hyping up twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: so at least there's that right. The ESA no longer
Speaker 1: seems to be actively denying reality, so instead Stanley Pierre Luis,
Speaker 1: who is the president of the ESA now told Games
Speaker 1: Industry Dot biz quote, We're committed to providing an industry
Speaker 1: platform for marketing and convening, but we want to make
Speaker 1: sure we find that right balance that meets the needs
Speaker 1: of the industry. We're certainly going to be listening and
Speaker 1: ensuring whatever we want to offer meets those needs, and
Speaker 1: at that time we will have more news to share.
Speaker 1: End quote. That is way more reserved than what we
Speaker 1: have heard the last couple of years, and it could
Speaker 1: indicate that the ESA is grappling with how to either
Speaker 1: pull the plug on E three in a way that
Speaker 1: isn't disastrous, or to reinvent the expo entirely to become
Speaker 1: something new. I personally think it would be possible to
Speaker 1: make a public facing event and to have it be
Speaker 1: a satisfying experience. I mean, PAX has been doing that
Speaker 1: for ages and has had attendance that was at least
Speaker 1: as big as E three's most popular years. It's just
Speaker 1: that it has to be run in a way that
Speaker 1: is fundamentally different from a trade show. I think that's
Speaker 1: where a big part of the problem was for the
Speaker 1: last few E threes, because slapping on a public aspect
Speaker 1: to what had been an industry trade show is kind
Speaker 1: of like putting ice hockey players in full gear on
Speaker 1: a beach volleyball court and telling them to play. It's
Speaker 1: just not set up correctly. I think the pandemic proved
Speaker 1: to video game companies what they already suspected that they
Speaker 1: could survive or even thrive without depending on E three
Speaker 1: at all. Gone are the days when video game coverage
Speaker 1: was limited to magazines like Nintendo Power, and you had
Speaker 1: to set yourself on fire if you wanted to be noticed.
Speaker 1: The Internet makes it possible to reach a global audience
Speaker 1: without competitors stealing your thunder. It's kind of ridiculous to say, hey,
Speaker 1: why aren't you spending millions of dollars to participate in
Speaker 1: this event that you don't really need Because that question
Speaker 1: contains the answer inside it. That does raise the question
Speaker 1: of how the ESA will move forward. It still provides
Speaker 1: important services when it comes to the ESRB and also
Speaker 1: to representing the industry as a whole so that politicians don't,
Speaker 1: you know, blame video games for the proliferation of violence
Speaker 1: rather than say how easy it is to buy firearms
Speaker 1: and ammunition in this kind. The ESA does draw money
Speaker 1: from dues, but E three had been a major source
Speaker 1: of funding in the past, so it will be interesting
Speaker 1: to see where the ESA goes from here. As for
Speaker 1: E three, I'm not gonna say that it'll never be back,
Speaker 1: but again, I don't think it'll be back in the
Speaker 1: way that we're used to. If it comes back, it
Speaker 1: will be drastically different from what it had been in
Speaker 1: the past, and I don't think that's a bad thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's a necessary thing. Maybe some people will
Speaker 1: be sad that they missed out on the debauchery that
Speaker 1: led up to the big change in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: I'm personally not because y'all, I mean, that's just not me.
Speaker 1: Some For some of y'all party animals out there, I
Speaker 1: get it, But for boring folks like me, I just
Speaker 1: want to be able to see cool games and find
Speaker 1: out more about them. I don't need crazy parties and stuff.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think if there are any more future
Speaker 1: E three's, they will be very different from what we've
Speaker 1: seen in the past, and I would not be entirely
Speaker 1: surprised if E three just fades away. It also wouldn't
Speaker 1: surprise me if the essay never really formally pulls the
Speaker 1: plug and just allows it to kind of hang in
Speaker 1: the air as a possibility, because you never want to
Speaker 1: close the door if you don't have to, and I
Speaker 1: think that's entirely possible. We could go five six years
Speaker 1: with no E three and still not have a formal
Speaker 1: statement saying, yeah, that era is over, so we'll just
Speaker 1: have to wait and see. I hope all of you
Speaker 1: are well. If you are interested in games, you should
Speaker 1: look up some of the stuff that was announced on
Speaker 1: Summer Game Fest some of the streams that have come out.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of interesting announcements and unveilings. I'm
Speaker 1: curious to know if any games in particular caught your attention,
Speaker 1: or if you maybe we're left feeling cold. That's possible too.
Speaker 1: I know there have been years where I've seen all
Speaker 1: the game announcements and thought, you know, none of these
Speaker 1: are for me, which is not saying that the games
Speaker 1: are bad, just that the games are for people who
Speaker 1: have different skills and different interests than I do. I
Speaker 1: guess not everything could be Stardo Valley. That's right. I'm
Speaker 1: a hardcore gamer, y'all. All right, that's it. I hope
Speaker 1: you are all well, and I'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows,