Is The Era of Gaming Conventions Over?
As someone who has lived almost his entire gaming life in Iran, I always experienced all of the popular gaming conventions through the window of my TV. When I finally got the chance to visit Gamescom this summer, it felt like a dream come true. I spent two days going through all the exhibitions, standing in line to play demos of my anticipated titles, having a conversation with the devs, and buying gaming merchandise for myself and my wife as a souvenir while enjoying the passion for videogames in the air. It was a unique atmosphere that can’t be experienced every day. Yet, almost two months after that, most of the demos I played are already available on Steam, the merch I bought can be found on online shops, and even some of my anticipated games are already out and done! To make the long story short, the experience feels like something that is overly exaggerated now. It doesn’t feel as special anymore and I wonder why? Are we witnessing the end of gaming conventions?
Gaming conventions such as E3 and Gamescom were the crossroads that brought the giants of the industry together. But it’s no longer like that. Sony’s PlayStation was the first big name that stopped attending the conventions. It’s fair even to say that was the first domino that eventually led to the death of E3 in 2023. PlayStation took the same approach toward Gamescom as well and has been absent for the past few years. But this year, Nintendo also joined the absentee club. With two out of the three gaming console manufacturers out of the procedure, gaming conventions don’t feel as inclusive and unifying as they used to be; especially since PlayStation and Nintendo used to have some of the best showcases in E3.
Thanks to universal access to high-speed internet, everybody can easily watch the gameshows live from the comfort of their home. Even the demos from the events are readily available online in a couple of days or weeks. But this internet ease of access is also the reason big games left the annual conventions for quarterly in-house livestreams; whether it’s Nintendo Direct, PlayStation’s State of Play, or Xbox Games Showcase. Mega corporations prefer being in control and go on showcasing their merchandise on their own terms rather than being forced to prepare everything for a big event on a specific and non-flexible date, not to mention being forced to share the spotlight with their competitors. With their own livestream scheduled exactly when and how they want it, big names not only cut thousands of dollars spent on logistics and costs of participating in likes of Gamescom, but they don’t need to think about “who’s going to win the best of the show award?”.
The next big issue is that the gaming shows are all alike. They all follow the same frameworks without a glimmer of innovation. They’re devoid of an identity even when you compare them to other annual entertainment award shows. Since Geoff Keighley rose to fame with The Game Awards, he’s turned into the icon of videogame ceremonies. He keeps being the sole face of not only The Game Awards but also Gamescom Opening Night, Summer Game Fest and the late E3 which is why all of the shows follow a similar vision: bombard the audience with trailers and bring celebrities from all the unrelated branches of entertainment to a videogame show! Of course, being there at a videogame fair is different from just watching the opening shows, but the face and branding of these fairs are actually those live-streamed openings viewed by millions across the globe.
In our post-E3 gaming industry, Gamescom is now the biggest annual videogame event and one of the few remnants of the old times when not everything about videogames was digital. With the move towards full digitalization of the industry pioneered by the current gen consoles and upcoming refreshes such as PlayStation 5 Pro, the physicality of our presence in a videogame fair is also at risk; evident from the repeated absence of big names as well. But it’s a unique experience to meet the people behind your favorite games in person, join thousands of fellow gamers in an event, take pictures with cosplayers, and make memories of “being there”. But in its current state, such conventions are kind of an endangered species unless their strategy is revamped.
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