GameCyte

Coming on the heels of an announcement that Activision will not be in attendance at E3 and that Activision and Vivendi Games are leaving the ESA, there is news that Foundation 9 and NCsoft will not be attending the annual entertainment expo. The industry show has been in turmoil ever since the decision was made to make the show industry- rather than public-facing. It appears that the redesigned trade show no longer fits into the plans of a number of companies.

Some, including analyst Michael Pachter, are blaming the exodus from E3 and Activision Blizzard’s departure on the hands off approach of the new ESA president, Mike Gallagher.

The reasons that Foundation 9 cited were simple economics:

“No, we’re not attending E3 this year,” said a Foundation 9 representative. “We just didn’t feel like we got enough out of the investment last year in order to justify the expense this year.”

Furthermore, Foundation 9 made a point of distancing themselves from Activision’s actions:

“Our decision not to exhibit at E3 this year, was in no way in response to Activision’s decision,” said the rep. “We came to the decision on our own at the end of 2007. Some of our business development folks may actually go to the show as attendees, we’re just not investing in the exhibit space. In addition, we just want to be clear that we have nothing against the show or the ESA in any way; exhibiting at E3 is just not something that fits with our marketing strategy this year.”

The absence of NCsoft has been expected since last year, particularly in light of the comments of NCsoft VP Fred Schmidt about the show:

After being fined $5,000 for a noise violation, NCsoft vice president of strategic development Fred Schmidt publicly called out the trade body, saying, “We’re not sure we’re on the same plane with this organization… We have been harassed for three days straight, and I’m not sure we’re coming back here.”

As we would expect, of course, the actual statement from NCsoft is far less exciting or flame-worthy:

“The timing wasn’t right for our products, so it really doesn’t make sense for us to go.”

In the days to come, I am sure we will hear of more publishers and developers that won’t be exhibiting at E3, and I’m also sure we’ll hear from other exhibitors that are quite optimistic about the show. I doubt we’ll be able to judge this new, even more slim E3 until after the exhibition.