GGL Wire

Granted, nobody genuinely believed that E for All would be able to fill the shoes of the event it was designed to replace, the late lamented Electronic Entertainment Expo.

But surely IDG World Expo, the organizers of E for All, could have done better than this. E3 filled both main halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center plus Kentia Hall downstairs. E for All fills two-thirds of one hall. E3 had hundreds of booths, from every major publisher and console manufacturer, all the big chip makers, and from gaming companies around the world. E for All has dozens of booths from mostly domestic companies. EA, Intel and Nintendo are here, but there’s not much else.

Furthermore, E for All is expensive for the average gamer. Sure, I’m a member of the press, so I get in for free and receive a complimentary lunch of egg salad on a croissant. Joe Gamer has to cough up $50 for a Thur/Fri ticket, $75 for a Sat/Sun ticket, or $90 for a four-day (Jesus, what would you do here for four days?).  Compare this with the comparably-sized (but better attended) DigitalLife: $12 to get in (free if you’re Jessica Alba).

At the Super Smash Brothers booth, I talked to two gamers who came out from Pennsylvania to attend this thing. Can you imagine? Flying across the country for a half-day’s worth of fun. I’d be pissed.

The exhibitors weren’t too happy, either. A representative from a major games publisher that shall remain nameless expressed wonderment at the small venue and the low turnout. His superiors were not happy about the money they spent.

So what went wrong? To understand that, you have to know two things: why E3 was so successful, and why it ceased to exist.

The original E3 was a trade show, designed to give the videogames industry a show of its own. Until then, videogame producers, developers and manufacturers had attended conventions like the Consumer Electronics Show and COMDEX, where videogames were a sideshow, not the main attraction.

When videogame fanboys learned about E3, the event acquired a mystique — if you were really into videogames, it was the place to be. Thus began a protracted and eventually deadly war between the industry on one side, gamers on the other, and E3’s organizers in the middle.

Industry people didn’t want the fanboys at E3. They made the event too crowded and were too much of a distraction from important sales meetings and conferences. It cost a lot to build booths to keep the fanboys entertained, and that money could be better spent on traditional marketing to target larger audiences than attendees at one convention.

To respond to industry concerns, the Entertainment Software Association, the industry lobby behind E3, made it impossible for children to attend, and very difficult for adult fans. Depending on the year, admission requirements for press ranged from draconian to fascistic. Sales to the public were limited. And yet every year, the event was crawling with tens of thousands of fans. Getting into E3 became a badge of honor for the true gamer.

In 2006, the big three console manufacturers, the linchpin renters of convention floor space, called it quits. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo declared they would no longer attend E3, and the event was killed. The ESA created a much smaller, industry-only event called the E3 Media and Business Summit, which was first held this last July. But the ESA “endorsed” the creation of E for All, which would replace the gamer/consumer part of E3. Except not.

What E for All lacks is the mystique of E3. Without the coolness factor, the kids won’t come. Without the kids, the big companies won’t come. And it cycles back — without the big companies, the kids won’t come.

Where did the mystique go? The answer is simple: Penny Arcade Expo. PAX is leet — if you attend PAX, you’re a real gamer. It’s not as leet as E3 was, but it’s certainly cooler than E for All.

There’s a second reason E3 failed and E for All is failing, and it has nothing to do with leetness, Gabe & Tycho, or videogames. The very idea of the convention itself is on the way out. With the advent of the Internet, it’s no longer necessary to fly business associates and press in from all over the country to publicize a press release. Small local events can be videoed and uploaded to lazy journalists across the globe. Sony gets more mileage out of Sony Gamer Day, which is journalists-only, than they do from a big convention — and it’s waaaay cheaper. Conventions won’t disappear, but an excellent model for the future of the gaming convention is BlizzCon: a large event targeted to a specific audience, and no competing with other developers for floor space or eyeballs.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the first E for All is the last.

See pics from E for All.