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COMMENT: Why has E3 forsaken mobile?
ME staff Jul 18 2008, 10:12am
ME editor Stuart O'Brien asks why mobile games seem to have disappeared from the E3 agenda.
This is E3 week. Two years ago that meant three things for us journalists and games industry professionals alike - a crappy hotel in Downtown LA, no sleep for four days and bleeding eyes and ears.
For E3 is the video games industry's big annual trade show. It was once possibly the loudest and most colourful on the planet, with the giants of the industry erecting huge homages to their brands that weren't so much booths as theme park rides.
Seriously, if you think Mobile World Congress is a bit much you have no idea. The last 'big' E3 (2006) saw the games industry spend a collective $120 million attending and exhibiting at the show. It's thought Sony and EA spent $10 million each.
Even the usually conservative Nokia tried to get in on the extravagance in 2003, when it unveiled the N-Gage during a warehouse press conference that took in dancing girls with pricing details written on their exposed midriffs.
It's unsurprising then that someone industry had the sense to say 'no more'. Last year's E3 was kind of like Barney Gumble before he met Homer Simpson - almost unrecognisably sober.
A new conference-based format, with an emphasis on networking and deal making, was introduced last year. In theory it gave the mobile games industry a platform on which it could feel more confident - the 'old' E3 and all its excess had little time for a niche like mobile.
But there was a feeling that show bosses still weren't giving mobile the nod it deserved. I-play resorted to running its own simultaneous event - Mobile Games Insider - next door, with then CEO David Gosen warning E3's organisors not to ignore mobile games next time round.
Well, it's next time round right now and it's been deathly quiet on the E3 mobile front. EA Mobile used its parent's press conference to confirm some titles, but there were no mobile talks in the invite-only conference track.
No doubt all the major mobile players were present on the floor (our colleagues on MCV even spoke to some of them), but in terms of 'in your face' PR activity it was interesting to see the likes of Sony making the running in terms of 'mobile' content.
Its PSP handheld has just been graced with not one but two video content download services. If we're not careful those console guys will not only be ignoring mobile but stealing its thunder.
For full coverage of E3 2008, visit ME sister site MCV.
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