E3 2017 - Now Open To the Public

Uh - E3 was open to the public originally. It wasn't even THAT long ago. Come on people.

Yeah. They switched to invite-only in 2007 because exhibitors complained about booth prices. It was an arms race to see who could afford to be in front of the most people.

FOH Drunk Party 2017

Intrinsic said:

Was it "open" open back then? I thought I remembered in High School going but had to use a friend's CompUSA or Babagges work connection to gets tickets. Like you had to be a member of a "tech" company but anyone could qualify. Maybe that was another Vegas Expo.

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I went to the Atlanta E3 in '97 and '98 and it was not open to the public. I worked for a multimedia and web design company that did work for game studios among other things and had to use that to get a ticket.

AFAIK it was never truly "open", just varying degrees of how difficult it was to bullshit your way into a ticket by claiming you were "press" or whatever.

If you just registered you got into both E3 (LA/Atlanta) and CES (Vegas) easy, at some point they would ask to see a business card but they would take shit from office depot. If you were alumni it was always easy to re-register with no verifications required, whereas they made it increasingly difficult for new people to register up requiring credentials, letterhead, work email, etc.

in the last year or two tho they have gotten desperate for people, i keep getting offers to go for free through my alumni registration, which I renew every year but don't actually bother going since its way easier just watching all that shit at home plus press people get insider easy access whereas floor plebs have to wait hours in line

Gonna be a massive clusterfuck this year.

I'll go next year.

E3 went from a huge event to completely irrelevant quickly. I wonder if this will actually put it back on the map or if there is now too much competition in the video game space now for it to try and reemerge.

Feel like E3 is no longer needed now that the big three can just do their own major events with the larger market and youtube allows you to announce your game in just about anyway possible now.

I don't know why would want to go to E3 anymore. Most of the good stuff is behind closed doors now. It's not like the old days where every game was available on the floor, hot chicks were everywhere, and free booze flowed like water. Atlanta '97 was a fucking blast, and I'll never forget it, but I wouldn't pay $200 to go in its current form.