Old E3 'served no purpose', says ex-Bungie boss

Alex Seropian, co-founder and former CEO of Halo developer Bungie, has said he's relieved that E3 has been downsized into a smaller event - adding that it benefited publishers much more than developers.

Speaking to ArmchairEmpire Seropian said, "Iâve got to say, itâs a huge relief. As a developer, E3 brought its share of excitement. Thereâs a lot of attention put on the industry and if youâve got something thatâs debuting or being shown, itâs very exciting.

"But more often than not, it ends up being a huge drain on resources to focus and to prepare for an event that really, from a developerâs perspective, did not seem to serve any purpose whatsoever," he continued.

"It was really a big strokefest for the publishers to see who could make the most noise."

According to Seropian, the old E3 did help to create buzz around games and the industry - "But as far as translating into how good a game is, it seemed to have zero effect."

In fact, Seropian added, it had "if anything a negative effect. And in terms of translating into sales, I donât how you could possibly justify the expense. I think thatâs why itâs gone away".

Seropian now runs Wideload Games, which he established after leaving Bungie. The studio went on to produce Stubbs the Zombie, based on the Halo engine, which didn't sell as well as he might have hoped.

"I think maybe it was unfortunate that we shipped the month after retailers stopped selling Xbox. That had a big impact on our sales," Seropian said.

"And we were with a really small publisher and the only way to overcome that [situation at retail] is by spending a lot of money and that wasnât really in the cards for the release. So you could say there was definitely some disappointment that is how everything ended up with the number of units that were sold, but in hindsight we learned a lot from the project.