I know for many of you this comes as no surprise but I feel it is necessary to explain that fact to the companies that seem to just feel like announcing stuff the week before. Games like Fallout 4, Ratchet and Clank, and even SOMA which was already announced but made the choice to put out its trailer on Thursday instead of waiting a few days for E3. This coupled with the crazy amount of “leaks”, (which come on, some of this is just faux announcement stuff), has lead to a lessening of the overall excitement about the coming E3.The obvious answer to why some companies are doing this is to simply to make themselves distinct from the rest of the games that will be announced at E3. To break away from the pack as it were. The announcing of games early, whether it be through an official announcement or a leak, is an overall trend that could lead to a more decentralized video game announcement scene.
Announcing a game early is no great new thing. What we see happening with announcements however is a sort of “tragedy of the commons” where everyone is doing the same thing. I will save you a google search on “tragedy of the commons” and tell you that is a term used “to denote a situation where individuals acting independently and rationally according to each’s self-interest behave contrary to the best interests of the whole group by depleting some common resource.” The resource in this case would be the public’s attention. In an attempt to get the public’s attention companies announce early but by doing so they in turn reduce the value of E3. Once so many companies announce early the games get lost in the mix because there is a new pack of “early announcers” that makes it difficult to get noticed in. In effect announcing early doesn’t change much in terms of public attention. Big games still get noticed over smaller games but a lot of great games never get the attention that they deserve. This in turn forces the smaller games to look outside of E3 for attention.
Leaks are something that are increasingly common in the last few years. With games being so big and with so many working on their pieces it is difficult for any company to prevent leaks. I do think sometime the term “leak” is being used loosely as sometimes companies want to hype their own product up without officially announcing but there are still many real leaks happening around E3 and during any given year. I don’t blame companies for having a leak happen if it is a real leak, but there is a definite effect on E3 and on the way in which companies interact with the media. The less companies want to interact with the media for fear of a leak, the more companies will choose to move away from the large parties and spectacle of E3. Evidence is pretty clear that leaks happen in larger quantities around E3 than during any other point of the year. I don’t know if there is a way to fix leaks with social media and video being now so prevalent in the daily lives of so many individuals but certainly I would say they are something that is having an impact on the ways in which companies handle video game roll outs. Whether we see companies move away from E3 to better keep games they want to announce themselves under wraps I can’t say but regardless leaks give companies caution around dealing with the gaming press.
It is somewhat ironic that announcing games is having a negative impact on E3. We can debate the scale of the impact or whether a decentralization could occur but it is clear that between the leaks and early announcements it could be asked what is the point of E3. What is preventing companies from just having their own smaller more controlled event? If a chunk of games is automatically lost in the mix why even have E3. Let me say that I love E3, everything about it I enjoy but I also can look at the situation from a business perspective. E3 is expensive, difficult to control, and it is easy to get lost in the mix. What is the incentive then for companies to stay on with E3 into the coming years? Even if E3 wasn’t expensive it appears incredibly difficult to control any form of PR message at such an event. This new trend of leaks and early announcements are symptoms of companies beginning to shift away from the stereotypical E3 press conference announcement time to a more broad period of time where games get announced throughout the year. A key example of this came last year with the sony’s “Playstation Experience” which was a quite large event with plenty of games announced. One could even say that the Nintendo directs which have been coming out fairly regularly are a symptom of major companies not wanting to focus so much on E3.
I won’t suggest that I have a solution for the people that like E3. Whether or not the decentralization of the E3 announcement season is a good thing or a bad thing only time will tell but I would say that companies are doing themselves no great service by announcing early. The same issue of getting lost in the crowd will occur either way at least however, E3 gives more eyes on products and in turn might allow for more attention generally given to them. For leaks the only thing I can suggest is just not to read leaked information and rumors. If leaks don’t get attention then what is the point in leaking something. I for one hope E3 remains a piece of video games for years to come while at the same time I think that it will lose some of its dominance in the video game event scene.
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