Siftr, E3 was always supposed to be an "industry-only" event for people inthe biz, media covering the biz...

With the web explosion of game sites (many very small and/or marginal) in recent years, they began letting an obscene number of people in.

But it was never something you could just attend off the street. You needed to have a connection of some sort to the industry.

From an industry viewpoint, "the fans" were part of the problem. Far too many people were claiming to be industry professionals and to be legitimate journalists simply because they ran a website that discussed game content (trying not to tread on GP's toes here). Demoing games became a shouting contest to be heard over the background noise in your own booth area which was trying to be seen and heard above the clamor of the adjacent booths.

The approach that the ESA is taking sounds more like New York's annual Toy Fair, where display areas are in private offices and by appointment only.

As someone who has gone to the past 3 E3s, I know the old format will be missed. But at the same time, I think it may be good making the event smaller and more intimate. The point of E3 is to get word out (as opposed to most trade shows where the point to to impress the retailers). As fun as going to E3 is, it's tiring and a mess for both journalists and developers. Furthermore the deadlines imposed on game companies to get things ready for E3 causes a lot of stress that could be better redirected towards making the game (instead of just a demo). Yes, there may be people in Kentia that will suffer, but at the same time, there are a lot of people in Kentia that seem out of place, such as distributers, cd-fixers, skinners, and so forth. I often found myself going to Kentia only after feeling like I have already seen everything else (unless there was a company that I really wanted to see down there - which likely is the sort of company that will be fine with the new layout of the event). So personally, I don't think it's such a bad thing that E3 is changing like this. After all, how does it help us, the gamers, that the companies are shelling out thousands of dollars to hire models that know nothing about the games. There are much better ways that these companies can spend their cash...

E3 used to hold a kind of wonder for me, one of my goals at one point was to go to E3. Then once G4 started covering it i kind of lost interest. I always thought of it as a trade show, not a circus. The more mass media stuff and the less professional the vistors, the more likely you are to have the shouting contest, who can generate the hype for their game. Who can win the cycle of one upmanship.

In the end it sorta felt like the game with the best boothbabes won. (I know that is not true, but it felt like it).

Lemme just say this. E3 is Dead. Long Live PAX!

As a leader of a group of graduates who are going independant, Yeah it really sucks. This year was going to be the first year I could actually attend. I approve though professionally the decision to change the format. How many Gamestop/walmart/other retail employees were getting in? How many random websites got people in? The whole issue was people with nothing but fan interests in mind could go and packed the booths, while students and other professionally minded attendees could not even get in the door.

I would like to see a fan event in america. PAX is on a roll, but we need a German gamers convention, or a TGS of our own. A big name event for us as gamers. It would make sense considering American gamers are practically the largest market in the world.

As I thought E3 is just for the highest (40-60%) game devs and publishers no one else need apply unless you got the monies.............