E3 Live completely disappoints fans

E3 2016 has officially come to a close, and despite the fact that Activision and EA were absent from the show floor, my experience of the show was that it was actually quite vibrant and filled with plenty of intricate booth displays and compelling new games to play. The same cannot be said for the ESA's first ever public satellite event, E3 Live, which took place next door at the LA Live complex. The ESA managed to give away 20,000 tickets in the first 24 hours after announcing the show in late May. But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for...

The fact that it was a free event, however, does not excuse just how poor this show really was. Fans were promised by ESA head Mike Gallagher in the show's initial announcement "the chance to test-drive exciting new games, interact with some of their favorite developers, and be among the first in the world to enjoy groundbreaking game experiences."

I spent maybe an hour there, and when I first arrived, I genuinely questioned whether I was in the right place. But to my disbelief, the small area (maybe the size of two tennis courts) was just filled with a few tents, barely any games, and a bunch of merchandise (t-shirts and the like) being marketed to attendees. The fans I spoke with felt like they had been duped. At least they didn't pay for their tickets...

"I'm a little disappointed," Malcolm commented. "We weren't exactly sure what it was going to be. We thought we were going to at least play some demos or something. There's not much [here], and I knew we weren't going to make it to the conferences, but I thought there would be more to interact with. It's free so I knew we wouldn't get much, but I was expecting something..."

"When we found out it was the first public event, we thought, 'Cool we can finally go to something E3 related' because we don't work for any of the companies and we're not exhibitors, and I was excited for that but then we got here and we were like 'Uh oh, is this it?' So we got worried and we're a little bit upset," he continued. Malcolm added that he thought it was going to be in one of the buildings right in the middle of the LA Live complex, rather than a siphoned off section outside with tents.

As I walked around, it was the same story from attendees. Jose, who came with his son, felt similarly to Malcolm. "It's not that big. I expected a lot of demos, but they only had the Lego Dimensions demo. I expected something bigger where we could play some of the big, upcoming titles. All it is is some demo area with Lego and some VR stuff," he told me.

When I asked him if he got what he thought would be an E3 experience, he continued, "Not even close, this is really disappointing. It's really small and it's just here. I expected more, at least to play some more. And the VR, I'm not even interested in VR. Me and my son have an Xbox One and we wanted to play Battlefield 1 or Titanfall 2 and we didn't get that opportunity. I was like c'mon man, I didn't come here to buy stuff. I came here to enjoy games."

By cobbling together such a poor experience for gamers, while 50,000 people enjoy the real E3 next door, organizers risk turning off the very audience that they should be welcoming into the show with open arms. As the major publishers told me this week, E3 is in a transitional period and needs to put players first. That's why EA ultimately hosted its own event, EA Play. "We're hoping the industry will shift towards players. This is where everything begins and ends for all of us," said EA global publishing chief Laura Miele.

"This is really disappointing. It's really small and it's just here. I expected more, at least to play some more"

It seems like a no-brainer to start inviting the public, and that's what we all thought was happening with E3 Live, but in reality they were invited to an atmosphere and an "experience" - one that barely contained games. The good news, as the quickly sold out E3 Live tickets indicated, is that there is a big demand for a public event. And it shouldn't be very complicated to pull off. If the ESA sells tickets, rather than giving them away, they can generate a rather healthy revenue stream. Give fans an opportunity to check out the games for a couple days and let the real industry conduct its business on a separate 2-3 days. That way, the ESA will be serving both constituents and E3 will get a healthy boost. And beyond that, real professionals won't have to worry anymore about getting shoved or trampled, which nearly happened to me when a legion of frenzied gamers literally all started running into West Hall as the show floor opened at 10AM. Many of these people are clearly not qualified and yet E3 allows them to register. It's time to make E3 more public and more professional. It's your move ESA.

We asked the ESA to provide comment on the reception to E3 Live but have not received a response. We'll update this story if we get a statement.