Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article is from the official account of Wechat: game Research Society (ID:yysaag), author: Zhaoyue

Times are changing, and so is the marketing model of the game.

The annual International Electronic Entertainment Show, referred to as E3, hosted by the American Entertainment Software Association (ESA), was once one of the best exhibitions in the video game industry.

Developers, publishers and hardware manufacturers gathered at the venue to showcase their upcoming games or related products. Countless popular classics show their faces for the first time on E3.

The Legend of Zelda series released by Nintendo on E3 (Candyland, the image source oil pipe blogger), but it all happened four years ago or more. The COVID-19 epidemic changed the fate of E3: in 2020, E3 was cancelled; in 2021, E3 cancelled the plan for live activities and changed it to online; in 2022, E3 was cancelled again, and even the online exhibition failed.

In an interview with the Washington Post in June 2022, ESA President and CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis (Stanley Pierre Louis) said confidently: "We are pleased to be able to hold online and offline events again in 2023."

As a result, E3 in 2023, scheduled for June 13-June 16, will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center in the United States, and everything seems to be back on track.

However, the major game manufacturers have no intention of helping the E3 this year. Before 2019, every March, officials had confirmed all the exhibition plans and even announced them in advance. This is not the case this year, replaced by the news that major manufacturers have withdrawn from the exhibition one after another.

First, in January 2023, IGN reported that Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft would not participate in E3. Sony abandoned the E3 as early as 2019 on the grounds that it was switching to "fewer but higher quality products". But a month later, Nintendo officially confirmed that it would not participate in E3 because "this year's E3 show is not in line with our plan." On March 11, Microsoft also confirmed that it would not appear in the E3 showroom, but would hold an exclusive digital show as part of the E3 electronics show.

As if dominoes fall, more and more manufacturers are abandoning E3. On March 28, Ubisoft, which said it would participate in E3 with a "strong lineup", suddenly announced its withdrawal and held its own exhibition in Los Angeles instead. On the 29th, IGN followed up the interview and learned that Sega and Tencent overseas brand Level Infinite would not participate in E3.

Without the support of some of the most important companies in the industry, E3 is finally unable to survive. On March 30, ESA officially announced that E3 in 2023, including offline physical activities and online live broadcasts, would be cancelled.

"all online and offline activities are cancelled." in a statement sent to foreign media, E3 co-organizer ReedPop quoted the classic line: "this is a difficult decision." This year's E3 "simply did not acquire the necessary and sustained interest to host it in a way that shows the size, strength and impact of our industry," according to an email released by IGN and sent by ESA to members of the meeting.

ReedPop and ESA expressed their willingness to continue to cooperate on "future E3 activities", but whether E3 can be held next year will not be known until next year. Some players have replied to E3 official tweets, predicting the 2024 E3: bold words this year, silence next year.

However, according to an interview with foreign media GameIndustry, the president of Stanley, who made bold remarks, seems to have a clear understanding of the current problems with E3.

Stanley pointed out that E3 got off to a good start in 2023, with exhibitors, industry participants, media and players all showing interest in the resurrection of E3. "in the end, however, some challenges proved to be too big to overcome." These "challenges" were summed up by Stanley as three plausible points:

First, the schedule of game development has changed since the epidemic.

Second, the epidemic led to an economic downturn, and game companies had to re-evaluate their investment in large-scale marketing activities.

Finally, these companies began to try to find the right balance between offline and online activities.

For the first point, all people in the industry and players feel the same way. From working from home to repeatedly jumping tickets, the epidemic has seriously disrupted the production, release and operation cycle of games, and developers are unable to deliver game trailers or live demonstrations on time according to the annual cycle or at specific times of the year.

The second point is the reality that is happening. Over the past three years, major companies have had to cut funding for activities and eliminate projects and teams, making it difficult to make adequate financial and personnel preparations for large-scale exhibitions such as E3. Even if they are ready, they prefer to spend tens of thousands of dollars on venues and accommodation on more stable, less problem-prone events rather than E3, which has been suspended many times.

The third point of the Los Angeles Convention Center (GameSpot) during E3 in 2019 is considered to be the most important reason why E3 is in today's situation. In recent years, game marketing has no longer relied on high-profile offline activities. The decline of E3 was traced long before the epidemic, which is just a catalyst for driving people to online activities.

In 2011, Nintendo held its first face-to-face meeting. Since then, the publicity mode of recording videos in advance and playing them regularly has gradually been regarded by major manufacturers as the standard mode of publicity activities. "Royal Sanjia", Ubisoft, and EA are all doing this. According to the Los Angeles Business Magazine, the status of E3 has declined in the minds of manufacturers, starting from 2017 to 2019, when E3 lost nearly 1 of its exhibitors in the past three years.

Face-to-face will enable fans of various manufacturers to get what they need and different offline activities, exclusive online publicity activities will not produce unexpected situations that may have a negative publicity effect. Because the time of online activities can be freely specified, manufacturers do not have to worry about their own hot spots colliding with others and being stolen from the limelight by competitors. After the online activities are over, manufacturers only need to send press releases, packages or games to the major media through the Internet and e-mail, without the need to invest additional manpower and material resources in offline testing.

President Stanley has not given up hope of re-hosting E3. "We remain committed to providing a platform for industry marketing and conferences, but we want to ensure that the right balance is found for the current and ongoing needs of the industry." He added that E3 will iterate over the way people participate in E3 to "ensure that it meets the needs of companies that want to market on this global platform." But how to achieve iteration is not a matter for the majority of players to worry about.

What's more, E3 is no longer the biggest game show, and the death of E3 does not fully represent the death of offline game shows.

After three successful sessions of the Summer Games Festival (Summer Game Fest), founded by famous game host Jeff Geoff Keighley in 2020, it was also decided to adopt a combination of online and offline exhibition mode. This year's Summer Games Festival will open on June 8, which may completely replace E3.

The times of the list of some manufacturers participating in the 2022 Summer Game Festival are changing, and so is the mode of game promotion. Neither the Earth nor the gaming industry will obviously stop running because of the lack of an E3.

Some of the references come from:

Https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/06/07/esa-e3-2023-summer-game-fest-nintendo-direct/

Https://www.ign.com/articles/e3-has-been-canceled

Https://www.gamesindustry.biz/e3-2023-is-cancelled-esa-tells-us-why

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.