Like Jim or hate him, the topic is dead on. The ESA is shit, and E3 no longer has significant value.
The ESA is in such disarray that longtime staffers like president Mike Gallagher and communications lead Dan Hewitt (who defected to Gearbox, the poor sap) jumping ship this year. It’s been much maligned of late, from allowing a breach of E3 attendee information to reports of controversy within the organization. Worse yet, the organization controls the ESRB, which is now transparently useless and serves the video game industry instead of the consumer base.
And E3 is an event whose relevance has passed. Jim makes the same arguments others here (including myself) have made, including how social media and video platforms have allowed publishers and developers to have direct communications with consumers whenever they want without having to spend a king’s ransom on ESA fees and E3 exhibition.
Fan events like PAX and other trade events like GamesCom have passed E3 by, while the ESA has struggled with how to pivot the show to the public but still maintain its trade event identity.
Live events in stuffy auditoriums are worthless in the Digital Age. Some people want to hold onto tradition, but they’re increasingly difficult to sit through in comparison to pre-recorded and edited videos like Nintendo’s Direct presentations. Sony embarrassed itself so badly at E3 2018 that it made the decision to step away from the event entirely, and that’s after previous events that may have had decent announcements but lots of useless filler (like live music performances). Nintendo’s 2012 E3 press event was so droll and boring that it drove the company to create Directs. Only Microsoft remains of the Big Three in tradition mode, and even that has problems (like annoying/screaming fans). Bethesda’s events are terrible, EA’s events are so bad that they’re offensive, and Ubisoft’s events are illustrations in trying too fucking hard.
I know that Jim’s schtick with this series is being negative/angry, which irritates people, but this topic is one to get irritated over.