EA and Ubisoft Execs Displeased with E3 Format

E3 2008 is officially concluded and most everyone who attended the event is speeding to wherever home is this Friday. Those show attendees number in the few thousand this year, a precipitous and purposeful decrease from the over 60,000 that crowded the halls of the LA Convention Center in 2006. While the new E3 is certainly less costly for all of the exhibitors (which was the main purpose behind downsizing the event) the lack of spectacle is rankling top executives.

"I hate E3 like this," said EA CEO John Riccitiello to the San Francisco Chronicle. "Either we need to go back to the old E3, or we'll have to have our own private events."

"E3 this year is terrible," agreed Ubisoft North American President Laurent Detoc. "The world used to come to E3. Now it's like a pipe-fitters show in the basement."

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Ubisoft executive director Alain Corre expressed his own personal anguish about the event. "It's one milestone in the communication of your products throughout the year, and it's important because it's the ramp-up for Christmas," he said. "[But] E3 here, mid-July, in the Convention Center in downtown LA - it's not appropriate I would say."

"There are no retailers at all, from anywhere on the planet - not even the U.S. retailers are there, and there are very few media outlets from outside of the U.S.," added Corre, lamenting the show's placement in mid-July. "Even the mainstream media from the U.S. aren't there."

Mike Gallagher, ESA president, said he's always looking to change the event to better suit its members. He commented to the Chronicle that he expects the event to grow again by some as yet undetermined amount. "We just need to decide where the dial needs to go," Gallagher said.

While few executives seem to want a return to the cacophony and huge spending of E3s past, they still want to make the show important enough for top retailers to attend.

"What we would like, and we're discussing that, is to have an E3 back in May with a bigger size," said Corre to GI.biz. "It shouldn't be at the same level [as 2006] because it was getting too big, it was a funfair, and the cost was too heavy for everybody. It has to be a reasonable size with some reasonable limits as to noise, attendees or whatever, but with a bigger ambition than the one we have this year."