Listening to the vocal feedback from 2007 exhibitors and attendees of both E3 and E4, the shows were again re-tooled. The 2008 E3 would relocate back to the LACC and the E4 event would switch focus from hardcore gamers and early adopters to casual gamers - a market niche not yet exploited by their competitors.

Having just concluded the 2008 E3, many lessons were learned: not to hold press conferences during show hours, remember to offer the media breakfast before the keynote, create a way so that ALL of the key figures in each sector of the interactive entertainment business can participate, and above all, probably best not to retain the venue. In hindsight, bringing the event back to the LACC was a mistake. People romanticize their view of the old show and will forever compare new events there to the E3 of 2006. Instead, why not move it to a smaller venue which can still accommodate the right audience - such as the Long Beach Convention Center?

I was asked during many of the media interviews we did last week about hindsight, and with the benefit of 20/20 view it probably should have been this: keep E3 2006 but reduce the number of folks down to 25-30K and then apply the Tokyo Games Show model - let consumers come in during the last few days. The "gate" revenue would have offset the reduction for publishers' cost per square foot on the main show floor (singular). Is it still possible...Maybe? The only way I could foresee that alternative remaining viable is to combine E3 and E4 and form a new joint venture, the way it all began. That solution being a success is also dependent on publishers investing more, overall. It seems unlikely that they would divert budget, presently set aside for the other successful consumer events, so it'd have to be a new line.

So the fate of E3 is far from set in stone. In just the past few days I've read comments from several ESA board members acknowledging that something must change, but I'd have to respectfully disagree that the show is either the raving success that one outlet described or that it is dead, as many have stated. E3 is standing upon the precipice. There are no easy decisions here and no clear cut solutions to the problem. The matter is a complex one and affects us all - not just in the way in which we get together and position the business externally, but also in how the publishers intend to fund their trade association and the important work that it undertakes.

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Hal Halpin is the president of the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA).