Ayase Leilani's Blog

As one might imagine, as an Otaku who has essentially been forced into the NEET lifestyle due to physical challenges, I love playing videogames.  And as I am also of the fun-loving sort, I love huge, impressive galas like the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), which promise not only a great deal of fun and partying, but lots of details on the latest and greatest when it comes to technology out of the videogames industry.  Think Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but with ten times the party and–of course–being exclusively for videogames.

In short, E3 is all about fun, all about gala and all about the industry’s latest and greatest.

This is not the first time I’ve spoken out about E3.  I’ve been following the annual convention now for about the last decade and actually covered the show remotely from my home in 2013, which was one of the most exciting years in my history of following the convention.

How many people remember SONY’s Jack Tretton ruining Microsoft’s day?

I’ve obviously followed this convention for a while, seeing all sorts of interesting things happening, from companies like Nintendo opting for video packages instead of a physical presence at E3 (something I criticised at first, but later praised as genius) to announcements like the SONY one above that shot Microsoft in the foot.

But…as years went on, things got less impressive.  Grand technological introductions faded away to discussing new, upcoming games that were often already announced prior to the show.

And then this year’s show began and I spoke out on it just yesterday via my Facebook account:

As you might imagine…

I was…

More than a little…

Disappointed…

…And unhappy.

I have honestly never seen such a lacklustre showing in all my time of following E3.  I was left feeling empty, beside myself and completely frustrated last night with the lack of gala, interest, presentation and industry-shaking announcements.

And then one of my closest friends commented on my final status:

“E3 may not even be as important as it is now. Thanks to the Internet, we don’t have to trudge through flashy, expensive press conferences to get info on upcoming releases.”

This gave me pause and I began to think about what I had been saying and how much things had been shifting in the industry.  I thought back to how Nintendo had pioneered the idea of video packages being released more like news updates throughout the year instead of all at once at shows like E3.

Then the same friend reached out to me in Telegram and sent this to me:

By the way, is anyone else surprised that E3 is now open to the public?

It looks as if E3 has undergone some huge sea changes over the past several years, which is all thanks to Nintendo and the way they’ve revolutionised how announcements of games and tech are handled in the videogames industry.  This has caused E3 to get creative, open up to the public and shift from an “industry conference” format to a “celebration of videogames” format.  In the end, it may not be too long before the conference loses its relevance altogether and ends up either no longer happening…or happening on a much smaller scale than before.

Wow.

I was wrong.

It’s not that these companies don’t care about E3, but that these companies know that E3 is no longer what it used to be; the announcements need to come periodically throughout the year via video packages and press releases, not huge industry-smashing galas.

And so it goes.

Things are always shifting and changing in this world.  I am generally very good at catching and predicting these waves, but like all of us, I am imperfect and fallible; I am just as capable of getting caught up in the high energy and gala as anybody else is.

And I am sorry for being mistaken about the importance of E3.

I will say that even with E3 on the way out, I continue to feel optimistic about the games industry, as things are growing, shifting and changing instead of becoming stagnant.  Nintendo has never looked more amazing with their market-throttling Switch and the industry itself is being forced to shift and change because of the changes Nintendo has been pushing.  It has never been a more exciting time to be a gamer, in my opinion.

No matter what happens, we can continue to enjoy fun with our games and the news updates related to them, even if grand galas such as E3 die out.  And that is something we can all be truly grateful for.