Opinions on the E3 Media & Business Summit held in Santa Monica last week ranged from "it was dull" to "it was a clusterfuck." We were also told multiple times "This is the last E3. Ever." Possibly hoping to lighten the amount of clusterfuckery from whatever form the show may take next year, should it survive, the ESA e-mailed attendees with a survey today to gauge general response as well as giving some hints about what the future of the event may hold.

In addition to differing time frames for next year's expo, some as early as May, the organization surveyed alternate locations for E3 2008. These included San Diego, Laguna Beach, and San Francisco, with its previous location of Los Angeles returning to the list of considered cities. The success of the physical format, with a series of meeting rooms set up in various Santa Monica area hotels and a smaller show floor at Barker Hangar, was also up for discussion.

Could E3 2008 be a very different beast, returning to a larger venue? Will the spectacle return? Will the event survive?

Personally, I found the format rather inefficient for Kotaku reporting purposes. Attending a series of press conferences at the Fairmont Hotel was a productivity nightmare and poorly handled. While I found the uncrowded Barker Hangar show floor easier to work with than the LA Convention Center's meat puppet filled halls, being shuttled from place to place didn't make it easy to get work done.

Hopefully, the ESA and publishers will find a healthy medium between the insanity of E3s past and the most recent scattershot, all-business E3.