E³ Summit's Back With Hits, Misses

LOS ANGELES—One more year, and a few more changes for E³.

In 2006, the show was E³/Electronics Entertainment Expo, with triple-decker booths, attendees fighting for space on a crowded showfloor, pulsing music, booth babes and companies spending millions of dollars to compete with neighboring booths at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

That all changed when the Entertainment Software Assn., which owns the show, announced that year the format would shift to the invitation-only E³ Media & Business Summit, produced by IDG World Expo, and move to Santa Monica, Calif. Last year, companies held meetings in rented hotel suites and featured game demonstrations on a pared-down showfloor in Barker Hanger at the Santa Monica Airport.

This year, it seemed the show tried to recapture a bit of its former glory with a return to its previous home, the LACC, though with the same invitation-only format.

“I miss the glitz,” said David Henry of Gamernode, an online media Web site covering the gaming industry. Henry didn't attend the show last year in Santa Monica, so it was his first time testing the new format.

Despite the move back to downtown Los Angeles, some attendees still longed for the old format and the media attention for the industry that went with it.

“This E³, I'd say, was just sort of a letdown,” said Bryan Davies, public relations manager for Irvine, Calif.-based K2 Network. “I don't think they've hit the mark at all.”

E³ attendees visited publishing companies' brightly lit appointment-only suites with stations to play the games the companies brought to show off. The Showcase Pavilion, a showfloor with gaming stations, also gave attendees the opportunity to play some of the industry's leading gaming titles, including “Rock Band,” which has four players – a drummer, guitarist, bassist and singer – performing together, on Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's Playstation 3 and Nintendo's Wii, among others.

The attendees did say they had some things to be grateful for: They could move from suite to suite without having to physically push people out of their way, and, with the return to downtown Los Angeles, E³ once again is in a convenient, central location.

Last year, many attendees and companies complained that, with the show spread out among several Santa Monica hotels, there were missed appointments and long waits for shuttles.

Stanley Phan, public relations specialist for Redwood City, Calif.-based Eidos, said, “This year has been amazingly wonderful.”

He acknowledged the difficulties people had last year with companies in several different hotels, but said having E³ back in the LACC made it feel more like the old show.

“I think it's heading in the right direction,” Phan added.

ESA did not respond to interview requests from Tradeshow Week.

Geoffrey H. Mulligan, president of publishing for Codemasters, based in Universal City, Calif., said this year's show had advantages, compared with last year's.

“It's much, much better having everyone under one roof,” he added.

And while many of the same companies exhibited at E³ this year as last year, there were some absentees, most notably Activision Blizzard, which ended its membership in the ESA as well. Several attendees told TSW that Activision, which publishes “Guitar Hero” and the “Call of Duty” series, was showing its product off-site in L.A. during the same time frame as E³.

According to numerous gaming blogs, companies are pulling out of ESA because of rising membership dues – in the millions of dollars per company.

None of the companies TSW spoke with confirmed that, but Mulligan, an ESA board member for eight years, said when an association like ESA has a tradeshow generating millions of dollars each year like E³ did, then changes to a format that barely generates a profit, the association doesn't have the money it needs to promote the industry and influence public policy.

“You have to get it some way,” Mulligan added. “And how do you do it? Your members.”

From the publisher's standpoint, he said, it's easier to justify spending “a million dollars” on marketing expenses like tradeshows rather than on association membership dues.

When asked if Codemasters will exhibit next year at E³, Mulligan said, “We look at it on a year-to-year basis.”