2K Games is the latest company to back out of E3, the largest annual video game conference and show held in Los Angeles. Speaking on the 2K Blog, Ronnie Singh, aka Ronnie2K, confirmed, "2K will not have a booth on the show floor at this year's E3 conference."
Although no detailed explanation was given, Ronnie did indicate that 2K appears to be going the Nintendo route. That is, reaching out directly to their consumers through live gameplay and event broadcasts — similar to what Nintendo offers with its Nintendo Direct presentations. Unlike Nintendo though, 2K Games will have no show floor presence; Nintendo only announced they will not be hosting a press conference, but will still have a booth on the show floor.
Parent company Take-Two Interactive will still have presence at the conference, though it will be mostly confined to the meeting rooms in the upstairs conference (those usually have more to do with sales and marketing than showing off the games).
While we're used to this sort of thing from Rockstar Games, the rebellious child of Take-Two who hasn't participated in E3 for a while now, this is very unexpected of 2K. You'd think with the impressive lineup of games — NBA 2K14, WWE 2K14, and The Bureau: XCOM Declassified — they'd want to show off their catalog for this year. Perhaps Take-Two believes it's money better spent elsewhere than on a media-only event which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to be a part of. I attempted to reach out to Take-Two, but was given the ol' "no comment."
It'll be interesting to see just how many publishers and developers follow suit given the increasing reach and response of online video broadcasts.
