It would seem that US video games trade body The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) wants to switch up its flagship E3 event.
That's according to GameDaily.biz, which has managed to get its mitts on a pitch deck for E3 2020, in which it would seem that the ESA wants to bring more celebrities and influencers into the June games event, something its membership has already refused to pay for. That's on top of introducing, er, eight "experience hubs" into the show floor between more conventional booths.
This comes as the ESA's membership has agreed to allow a further 10,000 consumers to attend shows from 2020 onwards, bringing the total number of gamers coming to E3 to 25,000. That's over a third of E3 2019's 66,000-strong attendance.
Introducing this mix of trade and consumer attendees makes it seem the ESA wants to make E3 more like Cologne's Gamescom, which is the biggest video games trade show in the world, attracting 373,000 people this year. In the past, ESA members have killed the idea of making the show a consumer event. In fact, there are attempts to introduce an industry day at E3 for members of the trade.
The trade body is, however, looking to make the most of folks spending hours lining up to play the hottest new releases with... “queuetainment", which would see attendees being marketed to.
Also of note to journalists attending E3 is the proposed introduction of paid media partnerships, which would see the ESA able "to control content and the message," which is no doubt of huge value to companies showing games on the floor who don't want negative PR. That's certainly one to keep an eye on when coverage starts rolling out for E3 2020!
