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Thursday, July 7, 2022

E3's 2023 Incarnation to be Managed by ReedPop

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'm cautiously pessimistic about the direction this is going in.

When telling the media (but not to anyone directly—even after this news, the E3 website still claims “E3 2022 See you next year”) about E3 2022 not existing, the Entertainment Software Association (the ESA—the American gaming industry's trade and lobbying group) also claimed they were putting their efforts into making E3 2023 really awesome. Apparently this involves having ReedPop—known for organising PAX and New York Comic Con—manage and figure out everything, because the ESA can't do that.

ReedPop is also known for being behind media outlets such as Digital Foundry, Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Nintendo Life, Pure Xbox, Rock Paper Shotgun, and VG247. Perhaps ironically, some of those sites have reported FAKE NEWS about E3 in the past, like which companies would and would not be a part of E3 2021. (As well as publishing FAKE NEWS in general.)

E3 2023 will continue to be in the Los Angeles Convention Center “during the second week of June.” June 11 is the second Sunday of June, though June 1 is on a Thursday, so I don't know if they count that as the first week of June or it's the first full week of June. There will also be a digital part, but if you do show up to E3, there will be in-person things for normal non-industry people. (I've traditionally recommended against that since it involves being stuck in line for hours, though maybe things will change?)


E3 2023 ReedPop event logo
The ESA is still involved. Well, they're giving their name to it.


There's a separate GamesIndustry.big op-ed from Christopher Dring, who is part of ReedPop as the head of Business2Business things, that may provide more colour—and more worry (at least, for me)—on what they're thinking.

Basically, he says there are many people with many different opinions on what E3 should be. Should it be a consumer-driven affair? Should it go back to the trade show days of gaming businesses doing press conferences to one another and the media? Should it even still exist?

Dring wants E3 to be more accessible. More developers. More than just consoles, but bring in more mobile and PC developers. (Ew.) More fans. And bring back the likes of Sony and Electronic Arts who have stopped coming there (I have considered their absence in particular a good thing). How can it be inclusive enough where everyone feels like a winner, and you don't have sites like KoopaTV saying one company clearly had a better E3 experience than another?

Frighteningly, they want to be so inclusive that when Geoff Keighley is still going to do his lame Summer Game Fest in 2023, they want that to be considered E3 2023, too. (Just like how Geoff Keighley considered how any and all gaming-related news in June 2022 to be part of Summer Game Fest.)

Still, details are scarce—it's implied they're still trying to figure this all out. And, hey, they have time. And it's not that they're lacking in ideas—but they have too many ideas that they can't fit into E3 2023 with the resources they have, so some might go into E3 2024. And... I figure they still need to figure out if their ideas are GOOD ideas. I can tell you that involving Geoff Keighley in E3 (or anything, for that matter) is a bad idea.

I'd rather they go back in time to, like, 2004, and repeat the formula they had there. That can include not giving every single publisher in the world their own keynote. But since ReedPop specialises in having lots of fans in one place... clearly that won't be what they'll go for.



KoopaTV will never be able to get media access to E3, and it's probably not worth it. But... what do you think?


E3 2023 will be from June 13 to June 16, 2023.
E3 2023 got cancelled.

2 comments :

  1. E3 is coming back and they especially want to bring EA back with them? Have the stars aligned or what, this is SOME news alright!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd be cool if EA declined and still didn't show up.

      Delete

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