Peter Suciu

CES & Gaming: Still A Ways To Go, But Can We Get There?
January 16, 2008

OK, last week I commented that the gaming presence at CES seemed like it was mostly Wii controllers and Guitar Hero devices. There was of course a bit more, but after talking to others in the “game press,” the feeling all around was disappointment.

After the debacle that was last year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, also known as E3, there was word that this year’s CES would be the premier destination for all things from the world of video gaming. The CEA hyped up that the Gaming Zone would be 65 percent larger than the previous year, and, in fairness, it was.

But 65 percent only goes so far when the show hasn’t really devoted that all much space to video games in recent years. It wasn’t always this way, and longtime veterans might recall that years ago the show did attract a bit more in the way of top-tier video game companies. Then in 1995 E3 arrived, and CES didn’t suddenly seem so important to the game industry. But let’s make a couple of points clear too.

CES is no E3

The way E3 had evolved, getting bigger and bigger with each passing year, had turned the show into an absolute behemoth, something CES couldn’t possibly take on. For years E3 had consisted of three large halls at the Los Angeles Convention Center, with off-site events, and massively over-the-top press conferences. No offense to any company already holding a press conference at CES, but Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft all went for the biggest events under the sun. To get these big three to present their gaming ware at CES would almost require another half-day set aside. Whereas the press day at CES means a dozen or so press conferences, the gaming companies have seldom been able to make their point in the same day, and when it did happen it required nearly half the day.

More importantly, to bring the video game companies to Vegas more show floor space than the gaming zone is required. About the only realistic scenario would be to send AVN packing out of the Sands and get that extra hall for gaming. This would still be a major step down in space from the grand days of E3 when it took up three halls at the Los Angeles Convention Center, or two halls when the show was held in Atlanta. But it would be a good size, especially when compared to the lackluster amount of space given to last summer’s E3 Business Summit, which had a show floor at the Santa Monica Airport. However, it seems that the best CES could take with a large gaming presence would be about what E3 was like last summer, an event no one seemed to like.

Timing is wrong

More than the space there is the issue of timing. And with CES now a once a year event, it doesn’t fit well with the schedule of the video game industry. The game makers aren’t in a position to show their latest titles only weeks after the holidays. Many times new console systems arrive in the fall, and while nine to 11 months might seem like a good head start, the truth is that the consoles might not be ready for a massive audience this far out. More importantly, the games certainly wouldn’t be ready. Developers already had been rushing to get the games ready for May, so trying to get an early January playable build together could be stretching resources very thin!

Seeing a bad demo of a game is worse than not seeing the game at all.

In fact, one of the key reasons for moving E3 to July last year was that it gave the developers more time to get the holiday offerings polished. And what would be shown in January could potentially change dramatically in the months to follow. This could reduce the show to game demos that would be little more than canned videos and titles with very little hands-on time.

CES and gaming going forward

This isn’t to say that CES should abandon gaming. CES remains the must-attend show for all things consumer electronics. And the CEA should continue to try to attract the major game publishers, hardware makers and other companies related to video games — so sending AVN packing and dedicating a full hall to video games would be a great start. CES wouldn’t be the premier gaming show, but it would be nice to roll in some of the Game Developers Conference into it. The press could get an early look at upcoming titles, and CES could become the event to see the spring and summer releases. E3 could live off to provide the rest of the information a few months down the line. Maybe E3 could even manage to become a bit smaller, without having to continue the Business Summit route. In some ways this could be a throw back to the CES of old, when the show was held twice yearly.

Past that, CES also remains a good place for smaller gaming companies to show their wares without being overwhelmed. Many of these companies were too small for the large format E3, and simply weren’t part of the smaller show. These companies don’t fit with the Game Developers Conference or New York International Toy Fair. So CES should become their home.

Companies like Commodore Computers and WolfKing are good examples from this year’s CES. These companies would be overwhelmed at E3, but CES helped them actually attract an audience. So while CES has a ways to go before it can rightfully claim the title of “premier gaming destination,” the video game industry would be wrong to turn its back on Vegas.

Posted by Peter Suciu on January 16, 2008 | Comments (1)