The weekend's rumblings about the possible cancellation or total overhaul of E3 left me feeling very conflicted.

I've been saying for two years now that E3 needs to change. There's just too much going on in too short a period of time for anything but a small percentage of what's shown to rise to the top.

Fan magazines are typically the only ones that can cover the show properly and even they miss out on chunks of it. Smaller sites, including ones like Kotaku, cover maybe half of what's around, if they're lucky.

Mainstream press covers next to nothing.

For instance, for this year's E3 I wrote two daily stories for the Rocky Mountain News, one covering Sony's announcement and another covering Msoft's and Nintendo's. In retrospect, I should have written a daily about Doug Lowenstein's state of the industry as well.

Afterward, I did a largish package for the Rocky Mountain News, which included a set of stories about the top games, some of the controversy of the show and a bit of the color. I also did a big analysis of how the big three did.

But what about Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Namco, or the hundreds of other publishers? They all had news, they all showed good games? Well, newspapers only have so much space and they just didn't make the cut.

So, on the one hand I applaud the ESA's decision, if this is all true, to do something about E3. Most of the people who actually show up to work the show, can't do their jobs because there's just too much to cover.

But then I started reading the rumors of what might happen. Things like E3 becoming one of many events that will take place over the year to promote games or maybe just developers doing their own things.

That's even worse than the current state of affairs. Sure game mags won't have a problem covering these events. First, they'll likely all be in California and second I believe a lot of magazines allow their writers to have trips to such events paid for by the developers.

But newspapers and mainstream magazines will be left out in the cold if this goes through. I know my newspaper, and most newspapers are like this, will never pay for multiple trips to cover the industry. And the Rocky's ethics policy, and again this is the same with most newspapers, won't allow free trips.

The last thing this industry needs right now is a move that will isolate it from mainstream coverage.

My hopes are that if there is a move away from the current E3 state of affairs it will be one to something more akin to a film festival, where the games displayed will have to go through some sort of vetting process to make the list. The end result I hope for is an event that would showcase the best of what gaming will be offering in a venue that is meant to be seen by those who need to see it, not want to.

I have a call into the ESA, hopefully they'll get back to me today. Brian Crecente

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