Corona claims it's next victim, and boy was he little more than a babe. Only 25 years old and the poor old Electronic Entertainment Expo has been put out to pasture. It's joined the big convention centre in the sky. It has shuffled off it's mortal coil. E3 is dead. Now, usually at such an announcement the protocol is to announce "___ is dead, Long live ___". It's a tradition that dates back to royalty to signify that whilst this individual is no more the royal succession continues on, but you'll notice that I have forgone that little addendum for a pointed purpose: I'm unsure if there will be another E3, let me explain why.
Over the past few days there a certain electricity that was running through the gaming news cycle as everybody with a source to their name was catching the coming shock-waves of something big. This is beyond the very public indications that all was not right in paradise, such as the ESA parting ways with the company they had bought aboard to help organise the event only a handful of months after announcing their partnership, and the bevy of studios announcing that they were going to pull out. Then there this little international incident known as the Corona outbreak which is so threatening to large gatherings of people that there's talk to cancel the Olympics. (Although if you're a Brit I'd imagine that the impending cancellation of the football season is more important. I wouldn't know, I'm no fan.) Corona already managed to cancel one potential gaming event and severely scale-down another, but the ESA still assured us that everything would still be full steam ahead despite the Coronavirus.
Well all that changed the day before yesterday when news started to flood out from the various companies who would be expected to attend and essentially make this event, apparently they received the news first. Now, I don't know who was technically the first to break the silence, as the official announcement was due for Wednesday, but the first message I saw was put out by Devolver Digital of all people, and some deep part of me really hopes they got the pleasure of breaking this one. Whoever said it first, the message rings just as true; 'E3 has been cancelled for the year' and now everyone can resort to breaking down and hyperventilating into bags like always. (Heck, E3 is literally the only event all year that I look forward to so I might as well go lay down in traffic.) Although to be fair I think the folk who are most distraught about this turn of events is the marketing companies who put all their chips into this yearly staple. So I guess that means Cyberpunk 2077's presentation is going to have to be a little more 'online' this year. (That's no biggie, though. It suits the aesthetic, afterall.)
But is this really the end of the world like us melodramatics are making it out as, or really for the best as it paints a precedent that we really should follow for the foreseeable future: a year with no E3? I'd imagine that if you happen to be part of Devolver Digital you've likely settled on the latter, as those folk have done little to hide their disdain of E3 over the years. Time after time again they've dedicated a portion of their E3 conferences to actively mocking the style of E3, the shape of the event or the AAA landscape in general, which is part of the reason that I hope they're just soaking up this development with glee. (They've said it's playful but there's only so many times that you can punch someone in the gut whilst holding a smile before it starts to feel a little mean-spirited.) Their grievances are transparent; E3 is outdated, too expensive and too limiting. (They've never publicly bashed the ESA for also being a little corrupt, but I'd imagine they're probably at odds with that too.)
Even before any of this there were big changes being forced upon E3 by outside forces, such as Sony pulling out of the event last year and this year, despite having several high profile titles that positively needed some dedicated advertising space. Then there is the pulling out of Geoff Keighley from the event, who left with a bevy of unsettlingly vague comments about the event which only inspired dubiety across his Twitter-sphere. Then there is the general distaste that was rising in the public's opinion of this E3 due to leaked details about how the ESA were planning to flood the event with celebrities and all manner of embarrassing show-piece events.
Of course, this doesn't mean that there won't be any event coming this June, and that is the reason why us gamers still have a reason to hold-off on the noose for a little bit longer. You see, whilst the ESA can't get their huge commission for selling overpriced halls to the E3 crowd, they still set a precedent for all major game marketing happening at once. (Which, now that I think about it, is ludicrously weird and competitive. How do they do it?) As such, plans are being drawn up for a digital version of E3 to be hosted and to be fair, even if that doesn't ultimately pan, it doesn't cost these companies much to buy a camera, some lights, a green screen and host their own show in the office. Nintendo have been doing it for years, Sony have started it, why shouldn't everyone get on this bandwagon?
The danger of this precedent, a least in the eyes of the E3 showrunners, is that the second these companies realise this, along with how much they've been wasting on renting showrooms all these years, E3 will suddenly become redundant. And part of me says; good, the sooner the better. Back when the AAA market used to stand for high quality games, it meant something important to see them all together at the same event; but now a great game can be made by anyone with the right drive and enough time on their hands, so why should be even bother with these theatrics anymore? If we think back to the most influential games of the last few years then you'd note that a good deal of them were indie titles that never had the benefit of an E3 showcase; Fnaf, (Say what you will about the games, they were influential) Undertale and DDLC are just a few off the top of my head.
So E3 is redundant and E3 is dead. Or to be more precise, E3 2020 is dead. Although I have a suspicion that this death may stick around. Perhaps I'm being a tad unfair and there is a future for E3 in a complete overhaul of their brand, I've said as much before and Geoff Keighley seems to want that very much according to his Tweets, but I think it's far too little too late now. Besides, I'm personally not much of a fan of any one company, especially the ESA, holding control over which high budget game gets seen and which doesn't. It's just like the old Philosopher Kanye said: "No one man should have all that power." (Okay, I'm getting a little off track, I should probably wrap this up.) With mixed feelings I bid adieu to the only tradition that I ever swore to, may something better rise from it's ashes.
No comments:
Post a Comment