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Report: Media coverage dipping for E3

Report: Media coverage dipping for E3

US video games trade show E3 isn't drawing as much media attention as it once did.

That's according to research by PR firm Evolve, which spoke to ten per cent of both traditional media and influencers attending the LA trade show. 2019 saw 2,024 members of the media come to the event, an increase on 2018's 1,831 but down on the 3,000 that turned out for the 2017 showing.

This year, 1,217 articles from traditional outlet came out of E3, an increase on average in pieces per outlet but 40 per cent down on the number produced in 2017. So fewer articles but more from individual outlets.

On the influencer side of things, of the 34 channels examined 47 items of content were produced

"So the cold hard truth is that, in its current state, E3 looks to be in rough shape and is a dicey proposition for a lot of parties," wrote Matt Broitman, Evolve's client support and research coordinator.

"There are plenty of factors influencing this situation, such as the ever increasing public presence, larger names abandoning the event, and the ease of covering the show (or similar presentations) from home. The pool of first-hand coverage that came out of E3 this year has shrunk comparatively, and what remained went even further to those big names, leaving smaller titles high and dry. This results in E3 having lost its identity and failing to excel in any given category; it’s too expensive to be a public focused show like PAX, too crowded and public to be an industry focused event like GDC or DICE, and too broad and loud to generate the undivided attention that larger scale in-house efforts like a Nintendo Direct or even a basic press tour can produce."

This, of course, follows the revelation that show organiser the Entertainment Software Association leaked the private contact details of a large portion of attending media for E3 2019


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.