RIP E3 1995-2023 :(

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Today marks the end of an era of the past, as the ESA has confirmed today that E3 is officially dead. Not even the 2024 or 2025 events are going to be held either, with both being cancelled completely. This has come by a lack of attendance by the console manufacturers & major publishers, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this decade.

 

Thanks to the closure of E3, now that the Los Angeles Convention Center is no longer holding any gaming conferences at this time, I wonder if one who has the knowledge of beta builds and pre-release builds are going to look inside the center for any of those beta builds during that time. I guess only time will tell.

 

Now that E3 is dead, Summer Game Fest can now be considered a unofficial spiritual successor to E3. And the CES at Las Vegas is still going strong since it's inception.

 

It's a shame that the once iconic gaming conference now has become a relic of the past, now only in our memories.

 

RIP E3 1995-2023 🙏😭🙏

Edited December 12, 2023 by Wadmodder Shalton

[Mr. Freeze]

With the ability to stream directly to consumers, E3 was as good as dead anyway. The pandemic was just the stake through the heart. 

[Rudolph]

38 minutes ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

Now that E3 is dead, Summer Game Fest can now be considered a unofficial spiritual successor to E3. And the CES at Las Vegas is still going strong since it's inception.

Not to mention The Game Awards.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Rudolph

[Biodegradable]

Pour one out for the irrefutable King of Annual Corporate Cringefests, folks. We'll always have the funny/awkward moment compilation videos to remember it by.

[nathanB404]

Rip e3. Man, old e3 was WILD tho. Looking at those old archived IGN videos of beta games showcased during the early 2000s era of e3 is definitely a trip. The compressed audio, mixed with the 240p video quality and 4:3 aspect ratio makes for this weird, nostalgic, almost uncanny vibe. I miss it... 

Edited December 12, 2023 by nathanB404
Grammatical error

[Mr Masker]

I like how E3 has been declared dead like 3–4 times now.

 

It's a bit surreal, I'll be honest. E3 was just a thing that... existed, the thought of it going away never crossed my mind 5–10 years ago. Really, I only ever watched the presentations, but it was still a big deal for a time. The separate conferences are basically the same thing, but it's sad to not see them all have some sort of unifier. The Cringe comps were pretty funny too, but Minecon was my favourite for that.

 

Most of this post is probably just nostalgia and sentimental-ness, but either way, RIP E3.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Mr Masker

[Li'l devil]

E3 was great to watch... through crowbcat's supercuts.

[Dimon12321]

I've never been to a E3 event, but a lot videos about it were quite spectacular

[Lizardcommando]

Damn, kind of a shame what E3 became after the hey days of the E3s mid 90's - mid 2000's. In an ideal world, they'd continue it in some smaller capacity, but with more and more game companies just having their own little separate online conferences, it makes little sense to continue having E3 in the long run.

 

Maybe DesignerCon could have their event at the LA Convention Center instead of moving to Las Vegas, but that'll never happen, probably, but that's a whole different conversation... Oh well.

[ducon]

Are you sure? I can still play Inferno in Doom 1.

[Gmg]

Times change.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Gmg

[dasho]

 

Good riddance

[DreadWanderer]

Something promising that soon turned into a flex contest for only the biggest and greediest in the gaming industry. You know, once corporate entities realized that games are potentially a huge source of profit, to the detriment of actually creating meaningful products. Occasionally decent games among a basket of lies, smoke and mirrors marketing, and shameless cash grabs. I don't think I'll be shedding any tears today.

Edited December 12, 2023 by DreadWanderer

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Now if only members of Hidden Palace can get a hand on the pre-release builds of most of the games that were presented at the LA Conversation Center, though they might be hidden in the Backrooms somewhere. I guess only time will tell.

[mrthejoshmon]

Me and the boys used to get together to shit talk over E3, unfortunately all we have now is The Game Awards.

R.I.P E3, you misbegotten mess, may Peter Molyneux's bullshit forever live in our hearts.

[CrocMagnum]

A little part of me died when I heard the news, E3 was a part of my early gaming days. 

 

It was a big deal back then. Sad to see it go. 

Edited December 12, 2023 by CrocMagnum

[Bucket]

CES and GDC are where it's at, anyway. I can't imagine anyone wanting to be more informed than whatever trailers pop up on the Tube, unless you have a fascination behind the hardware and software technologies that go into game development.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Bucket

[Misty]

Past few years it was shell of the past self, better close now than continue forward and becoming laughing stock. 

[Panzermann11]

E3 striked out as interesting to me. Back then, E3 was mostly a simple series of amazing showcases for video games, for example Half-Life 2. Nowadays, it felt like a big-ass ultra-crazy wannabe stand up comedy show for the most part. I remember watching the supercuts on YouTube and it made me laugh my ass off so hard.

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by Panzermann11

[Biodegradable]

Ubisoft's presentation at E3 2011 is always the first thing that comes to my mind, featuring Mr Caffeine. It is such a painfully awkward moment with this charismatic blackhole plodding his way through a terrible "humourous" presentation that feels like it was written by a primordial version of ChatGPT.

 

Doodily Doodily Doodily Doo!

 

 

[OniriA]

Old news. Its been dead for 4 years already with plenty of prominent coverage predicting the "End of E3"

 

The years of unbridled hedonism are long past. The E3 was basically beer, boothbabes, more beer, sweaty gaming press, questionable afterparties and getting the latest scoops from drunk developers in nearby bars. The age of (live)streaming has effectively ended that.

 

 

Still a treasure trove of great and memorable events though. 

Edited December 13, 2023 by OniriA

[Wadmodder Shalton]

This weird cringy Wario thing from the 1996 event always make me think that this was a low-budget animation designed to promote the Nintendo 64.

 

[betabox]

9 hours ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

Now if only members of Hidden Palace can get a hand on the pre-release builds of most of the games that were presented at the LA Conversation Center, though they might be hidden in the Backrooms somewhere. I guess only time will tell.

 

Most of the time when E3 builds reach the public online, they're a case of that build being repurposed for other trade shows or conventions. So, several copies had been made and distributed, and one or more eventually reached public hands. That's usually how HP and its community members get E3 prototypes out; at least a few layers removed.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

It was a virginal cringefest where sweaty guys dressed like Naruto who haven't showered since World of Warcraft was released got a chance to hug women with big boobs dressed like elves who wouldn't otherwise give them the time of day. The other half of the convention was mostly a bunch of glorified advertisements. Not even actual trailers most of the time, just a 30 second clip of a black screen with shit like "The Last of Us Remake Part 1: Remastered - coming soon (eight years from now)". Then they get celebrities that seem to be (understandably) disgusted with what they're seeing and smelling up on stage pretending that they're a hip cool gamer bro while they play a malfunctioning motion controlled piece of shit. Even Daniel Day Lewis wouldn't be able to maintain character in such a grotesque environment.

 

Shit like E3 makes me embarrassed to even mention the fact that I play video games. It propagates the unfortunate myth that people who play games are unable to act like normal people, because all the conventions and publicity surrounding the industry show off the most embarrassing people. I get that we're never going to have a Cannes Festival for games, but I think anything is better than this kind of bullshit.

Edited December 13, 2023 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[RonLivingston]

This is tragic news mate, and ladies and gentlemen.

[Daytime Waitress]

 

4 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

It was a virginal cringefest where sweaty guys dressed like Naruto who haven't showered since World of Warcraft was released got a chance to hug women with big boobs dressed like elves who wouldn't otherwise give them the time of day. The other half of the convention was mostly a bunch of glorified advertisements. Not even actual trailers most of the time, just a 30 second clip of a black screen with shit like "The Last of Us Remake Part 1: Remastered - coming soon (eight years from now)". Then they get celebrities that seem to be (understandably) disgusted with what they're seeing and smelling up on stage pretending that they're a hip cool gamer bro while they play a malfunctioning motion controlled piece of shit. Even Daniel Day Lewis wouldn't be able to maintain character in such a grotesque environment.

 

Shit like E3 makes me embarrassed to even mention the fact that I play video games. It propagates the unfortunate myth that people who play games are unable to act like normal people, because all the conventions and publicity surrounding the industry show off the most embarrassing people. I get that we're never going to have a Cannes Festival for games, but I think anything is better than this kind of bullshit.

 

I do agree, but that kind stuff was for me just the surface level. At the base of it all was a really insidious wasteland of unnecessary middlemen, where marketing pukes spent large portions of actual game budgets in increasingly desperate attempts to outdo each other in order to impress journalists the absolute lowest tier of marketing pukes.

 

And whilst devs have always had some way to disseminate news/progress, I'm thankful to be living in an age where there's at least the potential for a more direct conduit between them and gamers.

 

Thanks for the memes, I guess, but good fucking riddance.

 

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by Daytime Waitress

[DreadWanderer]

31 minutes ago, Daytime Waitress said:

At the base of it all was a really insidious wasteland of unnecessary middlemen, where marketing pukes spent large portions of actual game budgets in increasingly desperate attempts to outdo each other in order to impress journalists the absolute lowest tier of marketing pukes.

 

And whilst devs have always had some way to disseminate news/progress, I'm thankful to be living in an age where there's at least the potential for a more direct conduit between them and gamers.

This I think is a very important point which I did not mention in my post. It was the inevitable result of a process beginning in the early to mid 2000s through which small developers and dedicated teams were devoured by huge publishers with terrible practices and zero ethics like EA and Activision. Everything turned into a spectacle that was mediated by big money, the gaming equivalent of TED talks. There wasn't any real place for indie developers and creativity, only empty and performative celebrations curated by conglomerates with a vested financial interest in selling promises and half-baked products. Say what you will about Steam, at least it's giving indie developers the chance to make themselves visible, alongside other platforms like Itch.io. We're in a much better spot now.

[scalliano]

"$299."

[Wadmodder Shalton]

On 12/16/2023 at 12:30 PM, scalliano said:

"$299."

"599 US Dollars"

[Herr Dethnout]

Now in Quakecon we trust.