After a fair bit of searching and speculation, some of the details surrounding E3's fate have finally begun to emerge from the putrid smoke and piles of debris that remained after the world's biggest games expo spectacularly imploded several months ago. James Brightman at GameDaily BIZ writes that the ESA now has a firm date and location in mind for next year's Min-E3, more seriously titled E3 Media and Business Summit -- a change from the previous and vaguely fruity E3 Media Festival.

Right, when is it taking place?

The event will take place from July 11th until July 13th, 2007.

It's not still in Los Angeles, is it?

No, it's been moved to the considerably less vile Santa Monica. Attendee mortality rates should be significantly improved. That means they'll go down ... we think.

How does Min-E3 work, exactly?

In concept, it's a smaller, more personal E3 comprised of fewer people, less extravagant spaces and more one-on-one time between the press and the latest third-person scuba-karate game. The full list of exhibitors / hotel guests has yet to be revealed, but Nintendo has already committed to showing their permanently grinning faces.

What's this about a hangar?

Well, in addition to having hotel rooms set up to demonstrate new products to the media, the ESA has obtained permission to use the nearby Barker Hangar (visit their disturbingly sterile website and take a virtual tour) as an expo show floor of sorts. With the event now being invite-only, the smaller space provided by a hangar (which may be smaller than some E3 booths we've encountered) should no longer be a cataclysmic problem.

Am ... I invited?

Probably not. ESA president, Doug Lowenstein, describes the new E3 as a series of "suite-based meetings with the software showcase in a controlled and business-like environment," meant to "successfully fulfill our primary objective of giving high-level media the best of all worlds." That doesn't sound like it includes fansites or weekend Gamestop employees.

Well, with that attitude, you won't be invited either.

Please be aware of the fact that we can end your existence with nothing but a few keystrokes. You're just an invented voice meant to organize this post's information. So shut up, okay?

[Update 4: The ESA has issued a press release addressing the situation. Read more here.]

Next-Gen has the scoop: Doug Lowenstein, the president of the Entertainment Software Association is expected to announce within the next 48 hours that E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the definitive video games show, has been cancelled. Industry sources have told Next-Gen that the reasoning behind this move is primarily one of cost versus return. Publishers aren't getting the media attention that they expect from the large amounts of cash that they're putting down to exhibit at the show.

Apparently publishers believe that the multi-million dollar budgets allocated to E3 would be better used on smaller, specific shows where publishers get all the limelight. There's the possibility of a smaller show taking place in May next year, but as Next-Gen puts it, "it's clear that the days of an industry event attended by all the major publishers, spending big money, are gone."

Check out our commentary on the cancellation at the continued link below.

EA's lust for licensed intellectual property has cooled considerably, if the company's statements during last week's fourth-quarter financial results conference call are any indication. At several points during the call, EA executives stated the company's desire to develop more "wholly-owned IP."

They've been beating on this particular drum for a while, in fact: in a conference call in February, EA Chairman and CEO Larry Probst stated, "One of the things that we're really focused on as a company is developing our own wholly-owned intellectual property."

In other words, EA's interest in movie-to-game translations is waning. The cynic in us believes that this may have something to do with recent delays -- first with the Godfather game, now with the Superman game. Foxy EA seems to be saying, "I don't want those grapes anyway. They're sour."

Overheard amongst the cluster of gamers who were gathering around these fetching lasses to take photographs:

• gamerdude: Here, hold my bag for me.
• dude's buddy: Why? Ok.
• gamerdude: I need to take a shot of my future wife.

 

As part of the E3 registration process for press, would-be attendees are given the choice of receiving announcements about the show from vendors and other exhibitors. All press registrants who answer "yes" to this question are added to a massive list that was -- until today -- a secret.

What happened? It seems that one Morten Iverson "ZEO & Creative Manager" for Copenhagen-based ZeitGuyz Game Developers, emailed all of us "journalists" with an offer to see a new game concept developed by his company. He forgot to use the "BCC" field, though, and in the process exposed the entire list to its recipients. Oops.

Concept shmoncept! We were more interested in the list of folks who had registered as press. As you may be as well. Here's that list, stripped down to just the domain name of the outlets who will be covering E3. As the diversity here indicates, E3 is going to be a regular media circus! Remember, this is only a partial list, as some portion of registrants have opted out of being on it.

Click "continue" for the list.

Slacker game developers and publishers looking to showcase their products at E3 this May are out of luck. Event organizers have announced that the 540,000 square feet of floor space is officially sold out. However, attendee hopefuls still have plenty of time to sign up—which reminds us...