E3 is officially dead, and all around the world, gamers can hear Geoff Keighley tap-dancing with joy on its grave. Now, more than ever, we need something to fill the void left behind by the convention, and the Game Awards and Summer Game Fest don’t fit the bill.
While TGA and SGF may seem great for gamers at first glance, they don’t offer nearly as much as E3 did. TGA and SGF, along with all the PlayStation, Nintendo, and Microsoft directs, only let us see what corporations want us to see; a sanitized reel of trailers and hype, with no room for interrogation or first-hand experience. I know a lot of capital ‘G’ Gamers hate all us woke, lefty, snowflake journalists who can’t even complete a no-hit run of the entire FromSoftware catalogue, but taking a peek behind the industry’s curtain is necessary. These new show formats don’t give us that opportunity.
The team at Dot and I just covered the Game Awards, and for the most part, I felt like a useless mouthpiece, only able to repeat what I was seeing. That’s not journalism. But, if we don’t cover it, we lose credibility. As a major industry event, we need to cover it, the same as for SGF and all the directs, but when all we can say is “a new game coming out soon,” we’re not adding anything to the conversation. With E3, we could send journalists to get hands-on time and ask developers questions. We could go beyond the manicured presentations and polished press releases to give you our real thoughts based on our personal experiences.
As these events stand, it just feels pointless covering them. Why would anyone read a news post on an announcement they just watched if it didn’t tell them anything they don’t already know? The news helps people who can’t watch live, either because they’re at work or their internet connection is too poor for a livestream, but I doubt those readers will be enough to make covering these events worth the effort. Obviously, this hurts games sites, but it will also hurt the shows themselves. With fewer articles and less noise, there’s less of a tail for these events, and less buzz about the upcoming titles.
It also hurts consumers too. In an age of pre-orders and limited edition deluxe versions, people buy games before they have any idea how they play. Previews at these events can both temper and fuel the fires of hype. Sometimes, a game no-one was paying any mind to blows our socks off; sometimes, the most hotly-anticipated title of the year is a steaming pile of crap. E3 gave the press and the public the chance to get hands-on and make up their own minds before getting their credit cards out.
With E3 dead, we need a real replacement. There’s Gamescom in Germany, which has more attendees than E3 ever did, but it doesn’t have the same level of recognition and prestige. And while it did offer lots of demos and interviews, it doesn’t host the kind of presentations E3 was famous for, so doesn’t feel like a suitable repalcement to me.
None of this even touches on the awards show aspect of TGA, which this year felt more disresepctful to developers than ever before. The show needs to be split into two: The Game Awards, where devs are actually allowed more than 30 seconds to give an acceptance speech, and a Winter Game Fest, where all the trailers and announcements happen. Or, we need a replacement that respects the artwork developers put out into the world.
I’m not in events mangement, so I’m not sure what the solution is. Even if I was, I wouldn’t tell you lot, I’d pitch it to investors and rake the cash in. All I know is we need change, and with E3 gone forever, we need it fast.
