Who is E3 for nowadays? The Investor!!

Alright, we've all seen them by now. The past three to five E3's, feel really weird, at least from the consumer standpoint. We've gotten way less info on games and future gameplay, and instead been given more and more scripted events and pre-generated content for what's "just on the horizon". None of it feels like it's directed at the gaming community at large. Take Watch Dogs for example. I didn't personally get the video issue at first. I was way more interested in the gameplay. Which we didn't get till what, five months before the launch? But the thought of doing a GTA style game, with hacking, was a cool thought for me.

Then I did something really strange. For just a moment, I removed all pre-existing knowledge of gaming. I stopped looking at the Watch Dogs promos from E3's past as a gamer of 30 years+, and just looked at it as a person who might invest some money at a point. And that's when all that vertical slicing, graphical downgrading stuff made sense and would have irked me as an investor. How dare they show an INVESTOR, upgraded, enhanced resolution content for the game!! I expected money to come back to me thanks to the graphics I saw(remember, this isn't a gamer, just an investor)!! I did the same with the X-1's E3 event last year, and Sony's PS4 event this year. They all struck that familiar "This is for people with money to spend on investment, but who know jack about gaming" vibe.

Has E3, an event meant to introduce gamers and the game news services, been sold to investors on the sly? The evidence is certainly stacking up in that direction. Take a friend or relative of yours who knows nothing about gaming. Imagine they hit the Lottery, and ask you for some investment advice while you're watching the past few E3's. Imagine them watching the pre-scripted events, and hearing Microsoft and Sony crowing over TV integration into consoles. Then tell me they wouldn't be looking for a few stocks to buy.

What scares me, is what this means for future E3's. It doesn't just mean more scripted content. It means more layman content. More graphic slices, more enhanced pre-generated gameplay footage. More long-winded speeches by executives who should be speaking to an investor's convention rather than a gaming convention. Worse, as E3's significance diminishes because of these tactics, it'll spread further out to PAX, Gamescon and other events.

Blog?

Actually, I thought this year's E3 was not as bad as the last 2 years as far as non-gaming things.

Microsoft pretty much just showed games. So did Nintendo. Sony was the only one that ventured into other topics, but even still, it was mostly games.

Go back and look at last year's and the previous year's E3. I remember Reggie and Jack Tretton spent time talking about installed user base, number of third party companies, and sales figures.

No... this seems like a legitimate topic for "games discussion" to me.

Anyway, I was about to disagree by saying their main goal is to appeal to as wide of an audience as they can, but I think that's the point you're making. They want to make a good impression not only to get consumers to buy their product, but for investors to buy their stocks or whatever the hell. However, I don't think this is really anything new. Video game trailers have seemingly been overly cinematic for quite a while, rarely showing very much actual gameplay.

By the time a game reaches E3, investors are already ahead of the game so to speak. The titles we see at E3 has investors backing them before it hit the fan.

stockholders!

Heres an Idea.... Stop watching E3.... ;)

No seriously though, I've only seen E3 once, I always get my game info from literally any other sauce besides E3.

@yngsten: "The titles we see at E3 has investors backing them before it hit the fan."

Not true. Well, not exactly true. Yeah, I guess if you're high enough in the investment ladder, you can get the early stuff from some meeting notes or a financial document. But investors outside the company don't have that kind of access. Look at what happened to Microsoft last year. After their announcements at E3, both MS and Gamestop's share price went into freefall over the used game/DRM nonsense. It was just ONE company doing it, but it was bad enough to tank TWO separate stocks. Anyone who was an investor in MS at the time,and knew that announcement was coming, would have been screamin to dump their shares before MS took the floor.

My overall point is this: E3 is where we as gamers, go to get the first glimpse of a few new games, and hopefully get more info about ones in development. Non-gamers, go to Conan and Letterman. They go to Best Buy and Walmart, and ask some clerk who may be stocking PS3, PS4, and X-1 games all in the same column. They don't NEED a games show all their own. And if they do, LET THEM MAKE ONE UP!!! :-) It worked for Gamescon, for PAX twice, and it's worked for Gencon for years,