[Editorial] E3: Out with the Old

Andrew Knight compares the old E3 with the possibilities of the new E3: Media and Business summit that is taking place this July in this two-part editorial. Part two will be published next week.

As we all know by now, the Electronic Entertainment Exposition, or as it is more commonly known, E3, is no more.

From speaking to other journalists I think the general consensus is that this is a good thing, at least amongst those that went there to work, instead of just for a fun week in the sun. From an outsider’s point of view, and by outsider I mean those that did not get the opportunity to go, I can see how this would be hard to believe. Let me attempt to put some perspective on it though. On one side of it you have this really enormous exposition at which you got to hang out with a bunch of likeminded individuals playing the absolute cutting edge in gaming technology and software. There were also lots of half naked women hanging around and more ’schwag’ (free stuff) then you could shake a stick at. The schwag was also not just the usual expo rubbish which you throw away as soon as soon as you got home, it was anything from key rings, t-shirts and baseball caps through to, if you knew how to play the expo, new games and the latest graphic cards. And then of course there were all the parties, with free bars, hors d’oeuvres, entertainment and more chances to get free stuff.

Sounds like geek heaven doesn’t it? And it was, that is, unless you have to work whilst you are there. At the end of the day, E3’s intention was supposed to be somewhere for the industry to work and network with each other, this is where the problem was for most journalists. The exhibition part of the expo only lasted three days, and in those three days you had to fit a lot of interviews in. When you consider how much was announced or shown off for the first time at E3, and I have heard estimates of anything from fifty to ninety percent of the year’s gaming news being announced in those three days, there is just no way that even a team of journalists working together could even begin to scratch the surface of it. This meant that a lot of the smaller companies did not have a chance, to even begin with, to get their voice heard. Personally, I found that the cheap seats of the LA Conference Center, aka Kentia Hall, was my favourite part of E3, as it was full of the small innovative, up and coming, companies that were still passionate about their product and business.

So the first main problem with E3 is that there simply was not enough time to get all your interviews in. The next problem was the environment that you had to conduct them in, namely, the noise. We have all seen the shiny glitzy pictures of E3 and all of its booths, but what most people do not appreciate is quite how loud E3 was. Unless you were interviewing one of the bigger companies who had paid out for a separate interview room, either as part of their booth or elsewhere in the conference centre, conducting an interview was very hard work. At times it was almost akin to trying to hold a serious conversation in the middle of a gig, and as some booths had bands playing this was actually sometimes the case. Unless you had a really decent microphone, you could forget using a dictaphone, it was simply too loud. Because of this, at the end of the first day your throat was thoroughly hoarse, by the end of the third day it was not rare to lose your voice completely.Then there was the sheer scale of where it was held. The LA Conference Center has 767,474 square feet of display area. That does not include the hallways or the fifty plus meeting rooms that were also used. It simply was not possible to visit every booth in E3 in the time you had, even if you did not have any interviews to conduct. If you did have interviews however you can bet your bottom dollar that the companies and booths you had to go to were on totally opposite ends of the whole centre. This, as most interviews tend to overrun and/or start late, left you having to fight your way through the throng to get to your next appointment. Every time I have been to E3, by the time it got to the afternoon of the last day, I simply had had enough; I just wanted to sit down and not move for a month.

Unfortunately collapsing in a corner was not an option, because of the word that all journalists hate more than any other, deadlines. It was not enough that you had to run circles around the conference centre for three days, normally whilst totally jetlagged and on, at best, four hours sleep a night. Neither was it enough that you had to spend three days shouting interview questions, whilst doing your best to remain on the ball to pick up an exclusive for your publication. You also had to write and publish articles by the ton, and you had to try to do it before any of your competitors managed to. In my experience writing articles in the evenings was not really an option, by the time you had got out of E3 and managed to grab something to eat, it was time to head off to whichever party or social gathering you had chosen to attend. Which although a lot of fun, you were there to work and to build on your network of industry contacts (you can never have too many business cards to give out at E3). So trying to find time to write articles was nigh on impossible. What it generally meant was that on the odd occasion that you had a bit of time between appointments, instead of spending some time simply enjoying yourself, relaxing or getting something to eat, you would run up to the media room. Where, assuming you were not clever enough to bring your own wireless laptop, meant joining the queue, which if you were lucky you would only have to wait ten minutes for an available one. Then you would spend the next thirty minutes furiously typing away whilst at the same time uploading all of the images, video and press release information that had been given to you at your last few interviews. It is no small wonder that the vast majority of websites that covered E3 opted for simply posting the prewritten press releases and did not bother with typing their own articles.
However, I think the absolute hardest part of E3 was the mental strain. Conducting an interview is not simply a case of reading out a list of prewritten questions and noting down the answers. For a good interview you have to build a rapport with the interviewee(s), you have to show an understanding and appreciation for their product and company, be able to listen and, most importantly, it is imperative that you ask pointed questions. For example, most interviews start off with a presentation of their new product, after which you’re invited to ask any questions. This is the part of the interview that separates the wheat from the chaff, in journalistic terms. A good interviewer will now ask questions based on what they have just seen and their understanding of the product. Where possible leading the questions towards any key prepared points they want answers to. At the start of E3 this is fine, you are still fired up and filled with the adrenalin that you get from simply being there. By the end you are lucky if you remember the name of the product that you are supposed to be discussing and depend almost solely on pre-prepared questions. You also find yourself depending more and more on the press pack you were given during the interview.
So no, from a journalist’s point of view, E3 was a far from being perfect. It was both physically and mentally draining, and you still couldn’t get even half of what you needed to get done, done. So although it was something that I am very glad I had the opportunity to experience on more then one occasion, it simply was not conducive to work. This is without even considering all of the other issues surrounding E3 such as the fact that it was filled with rabid fanboys who weren’t there for anything approaching work or from the exhibitor’s perspective, the cost of running a booth. It has been reported that the cost of the bigger booths, such as Nintendo’s, Sony’s or Electronic Arts’s, ran into millions of dollars. So it was quite clear from the standpoint of anyone that was serious about doing business there that something had to change.