E3 is dead, long live PAX?

[techieMoe]

Following recent news that The Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) will be drastically downsized, I'm interested in hearing other gamers' perspectives. I for one am glad that the horrid spectacle that dominated all the programming for worthless channels like G4 for weeks at a time every year is going away, or at least changing so much that it no longer resembles what it was. I was tired of it.

E3 had become the place where marketing executives would meet yearly to throw out elaborate lies and half-truths about new systems and games, and the media (such as G4) would lap it up, hailing the new UberSystemAlphaDX3ExtremeEdition (TM) as the next "XXX killer". Meanwhile it became apparent to the normal people who actually buy and play games that the companies they'd loved in the past were turning into faceless machines, churning out unoriginal titles with newer graphics and "features" that they claim gamers want.

But enough of my soapbox. Does this news mean anything to anyone else?

[carlosponti]

doesnt mean a thing to me i became dissallusioned the day Microsoft released a gaming system goes to show who runs business now days. it sure as hell isnt the consumer! I used to go to Comdex from time to time and the last time i went it was just dissapointing it was about half the size of years before.

since you mentioned PAX i thought this was poinent

[benjamin20]

i dont know much about e3 since i never went or realy got that interested in it. but, well, you know those anoing people often found in CS or halo that were realy anoing and constantly talked about yow you were a haxor and how hes going to tell the admin on you. kinda like this guy http://www.pwned.nl/.

well it always seemed to me that those were the people at e3.

also the kind of people i feared went to e3 were the people that thought they knew coputer technology but realy didnt.

[DThor]

I've been amazed at the contining size of E3 in a world where big conventions are starting to go the way of the dodo. In a way, I guess, it made sense since the market was seriously growing, but now the other shoe has fallen, everyone's realizing that the costs of attending outweigh the benefits. Personally I find mega-conventions to be a wase of time nowadays in this age of demo downloads and road shows. Games made even less sense since it's not like you need someone to describe to you how to use it.

I personally get just more of a rush reading online forums when there's lots of buzz about a game over watching salesmen. Although there was a while where those nymphs in Tomb Raider outfits...hmmm

DT

[techieMoe]

I personally get just more of a rush reading online forums when there's lots of buzz about a game over watching salesmen. Although there was a while where those nymphs in Tomb Raider outfits...hmmm

DT

Aside from the booth babes (as you mentioned), I generally wasn't all that interested in E3 either. E3 actually banned them recently, if I remember correctly, so there went my last interest. I prefer smaller conventions (QuakeCon) where I can actually have a chance to talk to the developers and meet other people who really play the games rather than media folks.