E3 2016 to Have a Little Extra Floor Space - The UpStream

E3 2016 to Have a Little Extra Floor Space

posted Sunday Mar 6, 2016 by Scott Ertz

E3 2016 to Have a Little Extra Floor Space

In January, Electronic Arts announced their departure from E3 2016, instead hosting off-site events in LA and London where anyone can play their games. This came as quite a shock to some people in the industry, but not to us here. In fact, we have predicted for a few years that the event, which is incredibly poorly run, would implode on itself.

This week, that prediction came closer to reality with 3 more companies announcing that they will not be showing at the event. First comes the biggest of the group, Activision Blizzard, who said in a blog post,

In June, we're going to be at E3 showcasing gameplay from Infinity Ward's ambitious new game. We're looking forward to sharing exciting new details about the next great Call of Duty game in partnership with our friends at PlayStation. We're proud to be participating in this premier video game event, but won't have an Activision booth on the show floor.

Not to be outdone, Disney Interactive and Wargaming, the company behind World of Tanks, announced that they, too, will not have a booth this year, either. This is going to leave A LOT of floor space empty open at the event this year, and is hopefully going to force the ESA, who produces the show, to reconsider a lot about how they run the show. Rich Taylor, senior vice president of communications, said,

Each and every show, we have conversations with attendees, exhibitors, the retailers, the community. Our objective is to deliver the highest value we can. We continue to go through that process. We are listening and talking and asking right up to the show. We are in full service mode at the show to make it as high quality as possible. I'd argue that is why it's such a successful.

Clearly they have not done a great job of this in the past, but perhaps serious consequences to a lackluster show will make them look differently at what they do.

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