NCsoft, Foundation 9 bypass E3 '08

In Guild Wars 2 they should add tons of new stuff, otherwise the game will be bad. GW is boring now. I hope they have learned their lesson from the other MMOs.

Rust In Peace E3

Man that's uber weak sauce. Rest in peace E3.

GUILD WARS FTW(i didnt read the "news" lol)

E3 is going down hard.

A slow and extremely painful death to what was once an awesome thing to behold. RIP E3

It all boils down to $$$. Unless your one of the major companies and game developers, attending E3 is really costly and the return you get from it is quite minimal when you have to compete with loud noise and shelf space. Ironically, TGS doesn't have that problem.... in fact if the old E3 openned its doors to the public I'm sure these companies wouldn't be complaining. Overall, E3 has to change and going back to its roots will not bring back more people. You can't go home again once you left....

It all went bad when Paris Hilton thought she needed to show up. E3 is no place for Hollywood hijinx. Leave it to the devs, buyers, and writers. I's not a drinking party. It's a trade show.

I wonder if these larger developers are opting to host their own event and save the cost of doing multiple events, or simply have all the attention focused on their product alone, and not have to compete with other vendor's/dev's

I actually agree with the downsizing of E3. LET ME EXPLAIN! Back when E3 was a "Vegas lights show", smaller devs with cool ideas couldn't get much attention. The "big names" could practically buy attention via spectacle. So a dev with cool ideas wouldn't get to explain plot, story, visual style, play machanics, AI, etc... Thus, many slickly-produced and highly-predictable games hogged the spotlight. To thwart this, downsizing was neccessary. Now a dev gets time and attention to explain their product to journalists and reviewers. Smaller devs actually stand a snowballs chance for once. The mega-publishers hate it (and refuse to show up) because they can't buy the crowd out anymore. Well "wa-wa-wa". But, NOT LETTING THE PUBLIC IN IS MY MAJOR GRIPE!!!! We, the public, BUY these damn games! We should be allowed to see what's coming up.

I'm not completely sure, but I have a suspicion that everyday gamers have no idea how monumentally expensive it is to make an impactful showing at E3. We're talking about swimming pools of Abe Lincoln's here people, Olympic size swimming pools. Development cycles are no longer 1 or 2 year affairs for small development houses and E3's scheduling might not be optimized for their strategies. Even the big guys like Activision might see better returns on their investments by flexing their muscles on more focused and localized advertising campaigns. Ultimately WHO will benefit from some more developers having more money, time and flexibility in creating the games that they think we want? Mmm, I wonder...

WHO benefitted from killing E3 i would like to know???? it must have been the dumbest desicion EVERRRRR to downsize , now their loosing cash and people have lost interest. seriously somebody had to have had some intrest in seeing E3 fail but who??

It certainly will change the feel of the expo if we continue to see good entertainment creators like NC Soft and certainly Activision pull out of E3 but I don't think this will deter the ESA from their goal to make E3 itself into a better opportunity for all industry participants and not just Micro, Sony, and Nintendo. I certainly hope that this isn't a foreboding sign that the gaming industry is facing hard times with the down economy but seeing as how they're just about the only industry besides the movies these days that isn't slowly dying, I can't really see the justification that other studios would pull out of E3 also. So all hopes towards a future of greatness remain positive from my position. I hope from all yours as well.

If it works, don't change it!

No one cares about E3 since they changed it all around and its not an event anymore, plus this time of the year is the hardest for developers to produce working models of their games because their still in the early stages of development for they're christmas season releases. Im almost expecting most companies to bail out of this event in the next few years as it was slowly dissapear until its either scheduled around a better time later in the year or turned back into the E3 people used to love going to.

Well, history is cyclical. If you remember the old consumer electronics show game companies fell out of that trade show to create E3. I have a feeling that although the basis for leaving E3 isn't the same as why they left CES we still may see a new convention in the works.

I don't care much for E3 anymore after last year.

honestly.who cares whos attending and whos not. Im pretty sure no one here is attending.

It's a tragedy.

By downsizing E3 they have shot themselves in the foot. I have a feeling that a lot of game companies will start migrating to the TGS or other similar expos.

I would love to see the big players (SONY, MS, NINTENDO, publishers/studios) team up together and put on a great expo for people in the biz, and the fans. Just charge admission. Make it like Comic-Con but for video games. Its a win/win situation. Great marketting, and a great treat for videogame fans for new games and systems on the horizon. And maybe it can be a chance for a smaller developer to get noticed. Let E3 what ESA wants it to be. A long boring (yawn) conference for developers and studios to share their ideas, secrets, and roadmaps with competing companies. Bring your notebooks. Leave your tradeshow booth and shwagg at home. Keep it invite only, and make sure your best employees take their resumes so bigger developers can snatch away your best people. Are you still wondering why people don't like the new E3? This is not rocket science.

[UPDATE 3] Again, however, whatforsomuch... we don't know what the h*ll they're gonna do!

As long the awesome press-conferences remain from the big 3 it's fine by me.

E3 will end if this continues.

E3 will end if this continues.

they took the gamers out of a gaming show, and this is exactly what the organizers should expect: not many will show up.

Look at it this way; those developers can organise their own trade fair / showcase event at a convenient location with their own list of invited attendees. And the rented space is more value-added as compared to E3's. E3 is already bound for demise since 2006. Everything is priced ridiculously even the catered food.

videogames cost more to make meaning less videogames are being released (ie less to 'show'). Videogaming is not doing too well (if you take out the Wii and DS) as IDG Group said in a report on Friday. AAA titles across all machines (although especially PC) are not selling as well, and more of the market is going to retro, independent and casual gaming. You could argue the success of both the Wii and DS are the opposite of the graphics first, mostly first person shooter, AAA titles! Even on PC, where there are a larger percentage of graphic whores, we have The Sims and Civilization as our biggest selling (single/multiplayer) games, by quite a long way, and again these titles are the opposite of the graphics intensive first person shooter that mostly defines AAA gaming today!

lol Just as well Gamespot aren't running a newspaper.

I am starting to think that devolopers are moving over to TGS than E3. R.I.P. E3

so how are we suposed to see the upcoming games? the hype between the 3 big shows? just articles on the web now? ugh boring...

That's too bad that E3 is just disappearing before our eyes. It was a fun, healthy (for the industry) event.

e3 is so lame now

E3 is done and dead.

well thats a boring article

E3 is not the same anymore, I'm starting to like TGS more.

oh well i knew E3 would suck once it was downsized..

To tell the truth, I really don't care who or who not attend this year's E3.

Guess we'll get no interesting news from E3 this year(

See? Isn't this exactly what I said would happen? That more publishers would pull out of E3? Guess I was right wasn't I? FYI, the death of E3 would result in major losses for publishers who usaully invest millions into the trade show.

After what they did to E3 I wouldnt go

I'd drop out too after what they did to E3. Who's ever idea that was should be shot. And fast, so that we can get a real E3 again. I remember looking forward to E3 like a kid at Christmas just to see what games I had to mark on calender

Ever since they decided to go private and restrict access to the public (most boneheaded idea ever) E3 has, in my estimation, died. Part of the allure and attraction was that they allowed gamers to attend. Gamers got to see the new products and software which, in turn, helped the ever popular word-of-mouth advertising. Now that it's all private nobody cares. There are no gamers there to carry out with them what they saw, or to get the buddies excited about what they saw. It's really pointless now.

I'm a heck of a lot more interested in the Tokyo Game Show this year.......

Stupid E3. Why pay for a booth if consumers can't come see it?

I used to like reading about E3 but ever since they scaled it down the event has pretty much died which was dumb decision to do this in the first place. Sure it may of cost more over the years but they could of made up that cost with allowing the public in on the last day of the event like how the TGS allows the public in on the last 2 days it has. Now with these companies pulling out E3 is now going to die a slow and painful death as over time more companies I bet won't show up at all. Like GIF said why even bother to promote something that only 1 or 2 people will get to view.

If any more companies drop out, the news out of E3 will be worthless. I guess we'll see.

E3 no longer serves a practical purpose with it being private.

The reason companies are bailing out is because its a closed event and investing time and money to promote a game is useless, idiotic and irrelevant when the consumer won't be able to see the product nor try it out. Mostly, the games get shown to other game companies which is kind of dumb.

Not really surprised, E3 has been getting really expensive over the last decade or so. With the Internet providing limitless amount of advertising and hype opportunities, you just play your cards at another table. I don't think E3 will die, it will either re-focus (again) into an even smaller event.