This news is all over the place today. Evidently the ESA has gotten the message from publishers that E3 is no longer creating a working environment for having meaningly business communications in the gaming industry, so E3 2007 is being demonstrably toned down. Firing Squad has a great write-up regarding the news, interviewing several industry insiders on their thoughts:

Mike Fehlauer: Business Development, Penny Arcade

Do you believe that this retrenchment is just temporary or will other events in the US, including CES, the Game Developers Conference and Digital/Life, become bigger and more important without having E3 be such a big presence in the industry?

I agree with the ESA that E3 needs to focus on being an industry-only show where retail buyers and press can sit down and meet with publishers and manufacturers and talk business. But again, there is also a need for a dynamic show where the industry can make a big splash and show off its wares to the public. Those two separate objectives are ideally served by two separate shows.

As far as I’m concerned, this is good news. I feel like E3 has become increasingly flashier and irrelevant with every passing year. Publishers looking to get press end up having to save up all their news and game info to release to the starving hordes in a three-day span, spending a considerable amount of money in the process. And developers looking to score a publisher get drowned out by all the glitz and glamour, and lost amongst the deluge of noise and hype being flung around the enormous exhibition center. Everyone seems to lose at E3. Everyone, that is, except for the gamers. They get everything handed to them, and that’s been part of the problem. E3 has in recent years moved from catering to the industry to catering to the masses. A shift back to focus on their priorities may anger some gamers, but will in the end definitely help the industry as a whole. Let’s think big picture, people.

Big picture.

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