Hi guys,
I've done a bit of a write up about the Dissecta event I attended last Tuesday. I just thought I'd put it up here for any additions or comment before I post it up later tonight.
----------------------
Title: Dissecta: The Life and Times of E3
Body:
This Dissecta featured speakers Tom Crago, President of the GDAA and CEO of Tantalus, and Jason Hill, journalist for The Age, and Screenplay blogger, both of whom have been fortunate enough to attend E3 since 1999. Jason presented a history of E3, and then opened up the floor for a Q&A style discussion panel, with questions coming from the audience, and was broken up from time to time by game trailers from the conference. The event concluded with food and drinks and a chance to catch up with the speakers and other people from the industry.
The event started with the showing of a mockumentary of the first E3 Expo ever in 1975.
Jason began with a history of E3, from 95 to 2005. Saying that in the early days before E3, the place where new innovations in the games industry were shown was at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The games industry found it was kind of treated like the poor cousin at these events, which also showed the latest innovations in television, stereos, refrigerators and even had a large section dedicated to porn. In addition, in the winter show they were relegated to a tent away from the main building. So in 1995 a decision was made to break away and start their own expo, which was on by the Interactive Digital Software Association (now the Entertainment Software Association). 1995 saw the beginning of the launch of a new generation (5th) of consoles, Sega Saturn, NeoGeo CD, Playstation, Nintendo Virtual Boy and the Ultra 64 (Nintendo 64). Since then E3 became the place for all major games industry unveilings, from new games such as Half-Life and Unreal to consoles like the Dreamcast, PS3 and Xbox.
Jason put forward that E3 reached the peak of its usefulness in 2001, and though continued to grow in later years, it had the effect of turning into a bit of a circus, where it was literally impossible to see everything that was on display and the crowds and noise made doing important business deals near impossible. Tom Crago likened it to having 5 minutes in a small plywood box with a publisher in the middle of a crowded nightclub and trying to put a deal together before being rushed off to the next box. Also, because of the extortionate cost of setting up a booth at E3, it was generally cheaper to fly 20 or so publishers out to Australia where you would get a much better opportunity for quality interaction. E3 was also being frequented by many of the masses that managed to get tickets through friends or loose contacts with the industry. Jason said that anyone who could afford to line up for 5 hours to play the Wii for 5 minutes probably didn’t have a legitimate reason to be at E3.
This years E3 saw a big change in the way it was organised and became much stricter about who could attend, limiting it to a mainly North American Audience. Even a few months before the event, developers and press didn’t know if they were attending, or how they could go about finding out. Jason mentioned, that even though he didn’t go this year, there was so much coverage on the web that it was just as good, or even better than being there.
Tom said that this years E3 was a much better experience than in previous years. Instead of putting deals together in a short time in a noisy box, he was able to attend meetings and lunches at venues around the conference area, which was in Santa Monica, a pleasant change from downtown L.A. In fact, a lot of the business deals were made away from the conference, with it serving as more of a big buyers (Walmart, EB Games) supermarket. It is for this reason that E3 still has a place in any game developers calendar, because the people who are going to be ultimately making the decision to put your games on shelves, can have the opportunity to pick up and play your games and decide how many, if any, units they are going to purchase for their company. Though having a space on the E3 floor hasn’t always benefited small or indie developers, Tom argues that it has never been geared for the smaller developer. With only 3 days to cover many kilometres of expo, it’s normally the big publishers and developers with the flashiest booths that take precedence.
One of the useful services E3 still provides is a way of legitimising game development to people outside the industry, such as mainstream press or government officials. They come to an event like E3 and it helps them ‘get it’.
While it is still the most famous and publicised games conference of the year, E3 is now only one of many events on developers calenders, among the others are Leipzig, the Tokyo Game show, GameConnect and GDC. Tom stressed the importance, as Australian developers, of being able to have these few face-to-face opportunities with publishers a year, in addition to the constant emails and phone calls. Australian games developers really have to make that extra effort to get the networking opportunities that many North American, Japanese and European developers take for granted.
Feedback from this years E3 is being used to further improve the experience for next years E3. Next year will see a shift to a place between the more intimate event this year, and the extravagant expo of years past, as many lamented the move away from the carnival of the previous years. E3 will definitely remain an important event on any developer’s calendar, but not the only event.
Dissecta
Hi guys,
I've done a bit of a write up about the Dissecta event I attended last Tuesday. I just thought I'd put it up here for any additions or comment before I post it up later tonight.
----------------------
Title: Dissecta: The Life and Times of E3
Body:
This Dissecta featured speakers Tom Crago, President of the GDAA and CEO of Tantalus, and Jason Hill, journalist for The Age, and Screenplay blogger, both of whom have been fortunate enough to attend E3 since 1999. Jason presented a history of E3, and then opened up the floor for a Q&A style discussion panel, with questions coming from the audience, and was broken up from time to time by game trailers from the conference. The event concluded with food and drinks and a chance to catch up with the speakers and other people from the industry.
The event started with the showing of a mockumentary of the first E3 Expo ever in 1975.
Jason began with a history of E3, from 95 to 2005. Saying that in the early days before E3, the place where new innovations in the games industry were shown was at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The games industry found it was kind of treated like the poor cousin at these events, which also showed the latest innovations in television, stereos, refrigerators and even had a large section dedicated to porn. In addition, in the winter show they were relegated to a tent away from the main building. So in 1995 a decision was made to break away and start their own expo, which was on by the Interactive Digital Software Association (now the Entertainment Software Association). 1995 saw the beginning of the launch of a new generation (5th) of consoles, Sega Saturn, NeoGeo CD, Playstation, Nintendo Virtual Boy and the Ultra 64 (Nintendo 64). Since then E3 became the place for all major games industry unveilings, from new games such as Half-Life and Unreal to consoles like the Dreamcast, PS3 and Xbox.
Jason put forward that E3 reached the peak of its usefulness in 2001, and though continued to grow in later years, it had the effect of turning into a bit of a circus, where it was literally impossible to see everything that was on display and the crowds and noise made doing important business deals near impossible. Tom Crago likened it to having 5 minutes in a small plywood box with a publisher in the middle of a crowded nightclub and trying to put a deal together before being rushed off to the next box. Also, because of the extortionate cost of setting up a booth at E3, it was generally cheaper to fly 20 or so publishers out to Australia where you would get a much better opportunity for quality interaction. E3 was also being frequented by many of the masses that managed to get tickets through friends or loose contacts with the industry. Jason said that anyone who could afford to line up for 5 hours to play the Wii for 5 minutes probably didn’t have a legitimate reason to be at E3.
This years E3 saw a big change in the way it was organised and became much stricter about who could attend, limiting it to a mainly North American Audience. Even a few months before the event, developers and press didn’t know if they were attending, or how they could go about finding out. Jason mentioned, that even though he didn’t go this year, there was so much coverage on the web that it was just as good, or even better than being there.
Tom said that this years E3 was a much better experience than in previous years. Instead of putting deals together in a short time in a noisy box, he was able to attend meetings and lunches at venues around the conference area, which was in Santa Monica, a pleasant change from downtown L.A. In fact, a lot of the business deals were made away from the conference, with it serving as more of a big buyers (Walmart, EB Games) supermarket. It is for this reason that E3 still has a place in any game developers calendar, because the people who are going to be ultimately making the decision to put your games on shelves, can have the opportunity to pick up and play your games and decide how many, if any, units they are going to purchase for their company. Though having a space on the E3 floor hasn’t always benefited small or indie developers, Tom argues that it has never been geared for the smaller developer. With only 3 days to cover many kilometres of expo, it’s normally the big publishers and developers with the flashiest booths that take precedence.
One of the useful services E3 still provides is a way of legitimising game development to people outside the industry, such as mainstream press or government officials. They come to an event like E3 and it helps them ‘get it’.
While it is still the most famous and publicised games conference of the year, E3 is now only one of many events on developers calenders, among the others are Leipzig, the Tokyo Game show, GameConnect and GDC. Tom stressed the importance, as Australian developers, of being able to have these few face-to-face opportunities with publishers a year, in addition to the constant emails and phone calls. Australian games developers really have to make that extra effort to get the networking opportunities that many North American, Japanese and European developers take for granted.
Feedback from this years E3 is being used to further improve the experience for next years E3. Next year will see a shift to a place between the more intimate event this year, and the extravagant expo of years past, as many lamented the move away from the carnival of the previous years. E3 will definitely remain an important event on any developer’s calendar, but not the only event.