Do Trade Shows Benefit Gamers? 30
Thanks to The Adrenaline Vault for its article discussing the actual significance of videogame trade shows, now that "e-mail, Internet press releases, cell phones, faxes, personal digital assistants and the like make communication and transmission of information virtually instantaneous among developers and vendors." The piece makes the suggestion, with regard to "trade shows like Comdex, CES and E3", that: "In earlier days, people were attracted to attend the national conventions because of all the novelty present. Now, new software and hardware products seem more evolutionary than revolutionary, with a lot of copycat items that differ from what is already out there just through cosmetic differentiation." Do shows like E3 matter as much as they used to?
The advent of the internet (Score:3, Insightful)
Kind of makes going to the shows a lot less thrilling, I already know what will be there.
Of course, the booth babes still could make it worthwhile!
Re:The advent of the internet (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The advent of the internet (Score:2, Interesting)
Game focused trade shows (Score:2)
The shows targeted at players generally are not useful because only the product marketing people are there and no real business gets done.
There can be only NONE! (Score:1)
Yes, yes they do. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no I wasn't. (Score:1)
One Reason (Score:4, Informative)
What they do is they make a pile of secret new games and systems and all that jazz. Then when E3 comes around, bang! they show you all at once. You have lots of anticipation prior to the event and lots of talk generated during and after the event.
If the announcements of new games were spread out they wouldn't have as much oomph in their announcement. Of couse this has harms too. Smaller games get lost in the folds of E3. The big companies make such big announcements, and that makes otherwise huge ones from small companies look small.
I'm a CS guy. I'm going to buy the same games no matter what any of these companies do at trade shows or otherwise. So let the marketing guys do whatever they want.
Don't Dis The Messe! (Score:2, Informative)
Lately - over the last 4 years or so - I have noticed that these events are less and less important from the perspective of 'promotion/marketing to your market', and more and more important from the perspective of 'have a good time with the industry, party a little'.
What would be ideal is a little bit of Synth-DIY [synth.net], some
Does it matter? (Score:3, Interesting)
E3 used to be all about 'the games for gamers' but between Sony's move to make video game consoles the center of entertainment systems and the 'maturity' of gamers (thats debateable), E3 turned into an endless mass of unsorted, mostly behind closed doors media event.
Excuse me? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the press that have really glorified the tradeshow beyond its original intentions. Back before E3, games were unveiled at CES (Consumer Electronics Show). You'd find some magazine coverage of this show, but it was much more low-key, so fewer people in the general public really paid attention.
Now, you get all this over-hyped "wowie zowie" type of coverage of the show, with trailers being released and television shows going in and showing us what's there, etc,etc. Blame the media for making E3 seem to be something bigger than what it is.
Re:Excuse me? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because it was 'low-key' doesn't mean it wasn't geared toward the public, it could've meant that no one took them seriously at the time and now they're riding the way of video games being a multimillion dollar business. By your logic booth b
Re:Excuse me? (Score:2)
Re:Excuse me? (Score:1)
Well DUH. For E3, four years ago the Playstation was kicking Nintendo's ass and was making the Dreamcast a paperweight. Try eight years ago and you'll have an argument.
CES = Consumer Electronics Show.
E3 = Electronic Entertainment Expo.
Big deal, you went to two different shows. Whats your point?
Huh? (Score:1)
I don't know about those shows... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.quakecon.org/ [quakecon.org]
E3--Great Networking Opportunity (Score:5, Insightful)
That and a lot of developers spend all their time making their own games; they're too busy to really follow every game in development via the Internet. E3 is a great way for developers to see what other folks are doing and to kind of, you know, party a little. Though in my opinion, the Game Developers Conference is a better place for that than E3...
It never was for gamers (Score:3, Insightful)
E3 is not about getting gamers on board with the latest products. It never was, and for that point, is barely needed. What it is about is giving a chance for developers to get publishers to look at their games that they would never otherwise get. It is about getting the suits with money to figure out where to spend that money.
Also, it allows the press a chance to play two games likely to compete against one another and figure out which is more fun.
And it lets game programmers like me figure out what the hell everyone else is doing so we can try to do the same, only better.
END COMMUNICATION
Two words: Booth Babes (Score:4, Funny)
No they dont. (Score:3, Interesting)
I've never been to E3 etc so I can only speak for ECTS, but in this case it is strictly a trade show. I'm sure some enthusiasts manage to get tickets, in fact one year I got myself a press pass by claiming to report for a games news web site(Mmm, free coffee and biscuits..:), but this is the exception not the rule. This could be affected by the kind of companies I worked for but in my view ECTS was more about narcisistic industry management showing off than doing business itself.
not as much (Score:1)
With the advent of the internet, their main purpose, free t-shirts can be had for the price of a witty slogan. Since the target audience is on the more technical side, those who care can get more off the website.
Companies can hold their own release parties if they so desire to launch products.
Witness Comdex being canceled this year.
E3 and trade shows (Score:1)