How The Death Of E3 Changes Gaming Forever
4. Publishers Creating Their Own Events
That’s not to say gaming trade shows aren’t as popular anymore. Far from it.
Dedicated shows were rare in the 1990s but the industry has evolved considerably since then, and its global popularity has risen. Whilst events like the EB Games Expo and EGX host a variety of publishers, some companies instead create events focused only on their products.
It’s not a new idea by any means, as ZeniMax and Blizzard Entertainment’s have hosted QuakeCon and BlizzCon since 1996 and 2005 respectively. But recent years have seen Microsoft and Sony also held their own events, such as XO19 and the Playstation Experience, and this doesn’t even factor in publishers like EA, who’ve hosted their own EA Play event since 2014 in the week event before E3, as opposed to attending the conference.
The conference experience is becoming more fragmented as publishers seek greater control over promoting new games and hardware, both on the show floor and with online media and this changes marketing in a big way.
There's no longer the same guarantee that publishers will hold back until E3 to reveal new details now, providing a more even spread of announcements across the year.