October 2003
Gamers get floored

E³ creates consumer Web site, extending the trade show’s reach to more than 200,000 video game enthusiasts over three days

By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor

Wait in line as long as you want, but if you’re not on the list of 62,000 qualified attendees, you don’t get in to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E³), the Interactive Digital Software Association’s sold-out, trade-only event held May 14–16, 2003, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Last year, E³ turned away about 10,000 applicants for admission. This year, in response to demand, show management opened a back door to the show floor.

E³ remains the exclusive territory of retailers, distributors, developers, investors and media, despite repeated requests to open the doors to the public for one day. The event’s consumer appeal rivals the big screen. At $11.7 billion in U.S. sales last year, the electronic entertainment industry has surpassed the movie industry in entertainment dollars.

“It’s cost prohibitive to open to the public,” says Mary Dolaher, the association’s executive director. “We wanted to extend the show experience to consumers without the expense of opening the doors to consumers, so we decided to see if a virtual event would appease people.” The result: E3Insider.com.

Created in just four weeks and publicized with one press release, E³Insider.com gave 208,410 online visitors unprecedented access to the show floor. During the three-day event, an average of 30,000 visitors a day went online to watch Webcasts by E³Insider newscasters, see video clips of interviews, download photos, read about new products, and vote for questions they’d like to have answered by video game designers, many of whom enjoy celebrity status among gamers.

“Consumers write to us all year with questions they have about the products,” Dolaher says. “They feel like E³ is a plastic bubble, and they can’t get into it.”

Now they can “Send an Agent” from E³Insider. In the on-site war room staffed by 16 creatives from Cramer — the Norwood, MA-based developer of E3Insider.com — reporters monitored questions, researched the answers and posted the results online.

Unlike the static E³Expo.com Web site, which has the usual informational pages for show participants, E³Insider features dynamic content such as streaming video, polling and sweepstakes. Maintaining the site was a 72-hour-straight assignment for the team of editors, writers, photographers and videographers. Every night, video footage for the “Floored” section had to be edited, photographs for the “Photo Packs” had to be selected, and new product announcements for “Inside E3” had to be rewritten into short and savvy stories.

“The biggest challenge was to be sure the coverage was fair and equitable, no matter whether you were in a 10-by-10 or a 40-by-50 booth,” Dolaher says. “We wanted to make sure that everyone had the same amount of exposure.”

For the more than 400 exhibitors, coverage on E³Insider.com was a bonus. There were no additional charges, and no sponsorship sales pitches. In fact, exhibitors who asked were denied the opportunity to buy additional exposure. “Our goal was not to take money out of their left pocket, and then take money out of their right pocket, but instead to go to outside sponsors and find funding there,” Dolaher says.

This year, the association absorbed the costs, which amounted to about 7 percent of the E³ marketing budget. Next year, E³Insider.com will be paid for by sponsors pitching consumer products to video gamers. The association has already been approached by soft drink companies and auto makers.

Depending on how much revenue she generates, Dolaher plans to add more developer interviews and product-specific photography, as well as live chat, a Web log and a “blimp cam” to stream live video from a birds-eye view of the show floor. Sweepstakes participants who agreed to participate in a post-show survey have made several requests, such as time-lapse footage of the show’s installation. With a year to get ready, Dolaher will also get creative input from exhibitors to make sure gamers get “floored” again in 2004.