Activision-Vivendi Will Not Attend E3

[GameBanshee News]

Confirmed word comes from Gaming Nexus that Activision-Vivendi will not be attending E3.

We reached out to Activision to verify that they were out of E3 and received the following statement:

"After careful consideration, for business reasons Activision has decided not to participate in any official E3 activities. We wish the ESA best of luck with the show."

I'm not going to say this is the death knell for the event but when the #1 company in your industry doesn't come to your event you know you have problems. That means that Call of Duty 5, Guitar Hero IV and the rest of the Activision lineup will not be shown at E3. Activision is having a press event the first night of the show but this is a major blow to the event.

Kotaku notes this includes Vivendi too (obviously). With no Activision-Vivendi, no Blizzard (or Sierra). Joystiq also lists some other studios not coming: Atlus, Majesco, NCsoft and WBIE. Let's not start eulogizing E3 yet, but talk about a major blow.

[Tricky]

Isn't this a good thing? A while ago they were complaining about the E3 having become too big, that they needed to size down. Throw EA out too and give the smaller companies some space.

[Brother None]

I don't think they meant that kind of "too big", Tricky (also not sure if you're being sarcastic). There were too many non-professionals walking about, so they made it a pros-only event.

[DesR85]

Well, at least they can still set up their own trade show if they want to. Anyway, is it me or is the list of companies smaller compared to previous years (I was looking at the Filefront News article, by the way)?

[Tricky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brother None I don't think they meant that kind of "too big", Tricky (also not sure if you're being sarcastic). There were too many non-professionals walking about, so they made it a pros-only event.

It's the Tricky effect, you get used to it. Most people I know don't even hear me any more when I speak. But anyway, a 'pros only' event? As in there were either too many small time developers or non-journalists around?

[Brother None]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tricky It's the Tricky effect, you get used to it. Most people I know don't even hear me any more when I speak. But anyway, a 'pros only' event? As in there were either too many small time developers or non-journalists around?

E3 had got pretty big because of non-journalist attendant numbers, which hit 70k in 2005. ESA decided it had become too bulky, and made it invite-only, which slimmed it down to somewhat less than 5000 visitors. It's still fairly easy to get into, journalist or no, but the idea is a professional-only expo; so only developers and journalists.

[Tricky]

Ah well, thanks for clearing that up for me. I really did think it was about the other thing. Part of me does wish to see some kind of indie expo. It likely exists already, since I have a way of not knowing what is actually going on.

[DesR85]

Independent Games Festival, if I recall correctly. I remember Gamespot covered that event ages ago (not sure about the others). Quite a number of games they covered didn't even pique my interests, though.