I’ve been going to E3 for almost the past decade. Like most folks in the industry, I have a love/hate relationship with the show… I hate the noise, the hype, the inability to really evaluate the games, the immature reliance on booth babes, the seemingly wastefulness of money that could have gone into game development, etc, etc. I love the concentration of it all, the schmoozing and networking, and seeing all the media attention (good and bad), the parties, etc, etc.

With this year’s E3 fast approaching, it was interesting to see the discussion of E3’s value and relevance over at GameDaily. While I tend to agree with most of what’s being said, the response by ESA president, Doug Lowenstein rings most true.

In defending E3, Doug pointed out two important aspects: 1) E3 brings a whole ton of media attention on games and the game business, and 2) Proceeds from E3 (and all of its extravagance) flow back into the industry via the work of the ESA (eg, anti-censorship, anti-piracy, etc). Taking that more holistic point of view, I’d say that E3 is extremely important to the industry.

Admittedly, as director of the IGDA, I am quite jealous: GDC is owned and operated by CMP (a multi-billion dollar for-profit media conglomerate) which counts ever penny toward its profit-margin. Don’t get me wrong, GDC is great and we work closely with CMP, it is just too bad that the same “funneling” doesn’t occur…

(Since we’re on the topic of E3, two related notes: the IGDA will be hosting its second annual members-only party on the eve of the expo, and I’ll be running an exciting “workshop” tackling the creation of original IP.)