It looks like this will be the second and final year for E for All. What was supposed to be E3 for the public, turned out to be an embarrassing event. While E3 reached 70,000 in attendance in its peak, E for All would be greatful if they reached 10,000. Besides Microsoft, Ubisoft and EA showing up at the event, no other big video game were to be seen. You know the event is a failure when Target has a bigger booth than Microsoft and Ubisoft.

Long line

Besides a couple of people walking outside the LA convention center, you wouldn’t know there was a video game convention going on. Registration line was so long that it took us about 5 seconds to get to the counter. In most conventions, you instantly get free swags when you pick up your badges. But not this convention, all you get is your badge.

Once you get in to the showroom, you can feel your energy drain away because there is no excitement. I’d say about 30% of the booths featured Rock Band or Guitar Hero. I want diversity, I don’t want to see the same games over and over again. The Microsoft booth featured Gears of War 2 where we couldn’t interview any of the reps about the game and couldn’t shoot gameplay footage of it as well. The MS employees were dicks and thought they were too cool for the fans. I guess this was E for All’s big exclusive, “Gears of War 2”. Whoop dee do!

IGN Crew

Besides the event being dead, the best part was interacting with the video game fans and some of the smaller booths. The highlight for me was meeting Walter Day (the referee) and Steve Wiebe (the main player) from the documentary King of Kong. Mr. Day was really gracious and took his time answering all of our questions. Steve Wiebe was in a hurry because he had to leave but still went out of his way to answer our questions. Other highlights include the Tentacle Brothers rocking it out with the Target employees, chatting with Lara Croft, playing frisbee with the IGN crew.  Last but not least meeting new and old fans was a blast.

Walter Day

Besides the interaction with the fans and video game officianados, E for All was a total disaster. I’m not sure how this event became this much of a failure. The formula is there: E3 but for the public, and held in a large market: Los Angeles. The promotors had the right idea but somewhere along the way, they lost support from the video game industry. To that, here’s all I can say:

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