Kalinske: SEGA not attending E3 a further sign of weakness
In the first time since its inception, SEGA will not be attending the Electronic Entertainment Expo when the festivities kick off at the Los Angeles Convention Center on June 16.
In its announcement, an unnamed SEGA representative said the company will focus on moving its headquarters, while also being quick to point out that just because the company won’t have an official presence or booth, it “will be collaborating with our various business partners for this year’s E3 show.”
What that means exactly, we don’t know, but former SEGA of America President Thomas Kalinske told SEGA Nerds foregoing the event is a big mistake for the company, especially considering its recent financial troubles.
“I think it’s a further sign of weakness not to have a presence at E3,” he said. “Clearly a show like E3 is not as important today as it was when we founded the show after getting out of (the Consumer Electronic Show).
@SEGANerds Sega abandons E3? Another nail in the coffin, guess they forgot their US Mngt in 94 helped found E3. Wht nxt change Sonic 2 a dog
— Thomas Kalinske (@ThomasTkalinske) May 5, 2015
“We used to actually get orders or order commitments from retail buyers at E3, that doesn’t happen any more. But it is still important for retail buyers, and online retailers like Amazon to see all that is being marketed for a given time period/year, so they can judge where to place their support and plan promotions around,” Kalinske continued. “The show is even more important for media PR planning, for longer lead time (to allow) writers to plan their articles for the upcoming year.”
The significance didn’t end there for Kalinkse.
“The show is also important for all the financial analysts and industry pundits to form their opinion and write their reports on which companies are strong, which are weak, etc.,” he said. “Clearly, SEGA now appears even weaker by not being at the show.”
Kalinske has been publicly critical of SEGA’s direction the past few months, saying in February that a string of bad choices landed the company in its current predicament, but it didn’t have to be that way.
“It was not inevitable,” Kalinske said. “It could have been avoided if they had made the right decisions going back literally 20 years ago. But they seem to have made the wrong decisions for 20 years.”
Aside from Total War: WARHAMMER, SEGA has not announced any major new titles for 2015 or 2016, but did say it will announce titles from Relic Entertainment, Sports Interactive and Creative Assembly after its relocation.
So what say you, SEGA Nerds? Do you agree with what Kalinske said (P.S. I totally said the same thing too last week) about SEGA not attending E3? Let us know in the comments below!
honestly, this shouldn’t be a big deal. E3 is for the major titles. If Sega doesn’t have anything major to show, then they’ll go next year. This Guy I think is holding a grudge by the sound of it.
“We used to actually get orders or order commitments from retail buyers at E3, that doesn’t happen any more.” <– Of course, right? That's why SOA doesn't need E3 right now, since they are more focusing on digital right now. The game industry has changed.
I think they will be fine without E3. They have Atlus and such.
way to celebrate the Saturn 20th anniversary
I have a feeling that now that I’m on record disagreeing with Tom Kalinske in our Face-Off feature, I’ve sort of lost all credibility. All four credits of my credibility. Gone.
Maybe I’d care more if I considered my fanboy rantings to be journalism, you know, the way major game news sources do.
IGN? What about IGN? I didn’t say anything about IGN. Don’t put IGN in my mouth. You saw that, right? You know I never specifically mentioned IGN. Not once. (IGN, IGN, IGN, IGN…)
I think that by not having a booth at E3 it dose show weakness… Sega helped found the event and they used to be a key player. for them to not even show up makes it look like they are in free fall and don’t care about their past. I agree with Kalinske and honestly we should all except the fact that he has much more business experience than us so he is probably right.
Oh hi I’m sure you all still hate me but
“it “will be collaborating with our various business partners for this year’s E3 show.” What that means exactly, we don’t know”
It means that their games will be shown at the booths of their partners, so likely they’ll be at the booths of Sony, Microsoft and/or Nintendo. The writer of the Game Informer article you took the info from even mentioned that in the article. SEGA has done this for years now at Gamescom, with platform holders and Koch Media showing their games there instead.
Also, every time I hear Kalinske speak about modern SEGA it sounds like he has no idea what they’re actually up to, and just complains about them not being as big as back then without actually saying anything new. And going by how he says that SEGA is abandoning E3 rather than just not attending this year because of the restructuring, it almost reads like he only read the headline.
All the writer from the GameSpot article I “took” the information from was this – “Sega will be teaming up with some of its partners, though. So you might see titles at booths belonging to platform holders or PC partners.”
That’s hardly confirmation that they will show their games at their partner’s booths, but I did write in the original post that – “However, that doesn’t mean SEGA games won’t be shown during the event, as they could be featured during Sony’s, Microsoft’s or Nintendo’s conferences.” It very well could mean SEGA will have its games shown or playable at other booths, but like I said in this post, we don’t know exactly if that will be the case or not.
I think Kalinske looks at things from a completely different perspective than any fans, like us, do. He’s completely right that years of bad decisions have put SEGA into the situation they know find themselves in. If anyone has the right to be openly critical of the company, it’s him. Him and his team are hugely responsible for SEGA seeing the success it had in the ’90s and had he stayed on with the company, I think SEGA would be in a much better place.
We discussed some more things that we’ll be including in a separate article next week.
First off: Game Informer, not Gamespot.
And it does mean that SEGA’s games will still be there, but presented by their partners rather than themselves. Not sure what else you could take from it. Maybe they won’t be shown at their booths, true, but they will be shown in some form or another. Possibly behind closed doors, maybe just during a presentation. Thing is: SEGA’s games will still be at E3, just through SEGA’s partners. Not sure what else you could take from it.
And yes, Kalinske used to be president at SEGA a long time ago. Doesn’t change that he’s just saying something that’s been said a shitton of times already.
Whatever, Game Informer or GameSpot, they’re all pretty much the same anyway.
My point is, SEGA hasn’t specifically said what “collaborating with our business partners” actually means. It can be any number of things, but yeah, assuming they’ll be working with Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft is the safe assumption, but it’s still only that.
People care what Kalinske says because he’s one of the only SEGA of America presidents to be worth a damn. The difference between Kalinske saying “SEGA should be at E3” and you or I saying it is he can provide first-hand knowledge of the benefits of SEGA being there, something we, on the outside looking in can’t do. He explained the benefits of being there aren’t just to show off games, but the business side of being there is incredibly important for any company.
Except he can’t, SEGA now is different from SEGA when Kalinske was president. Maybe he can provide first-hand knowledge of what would be beneficial for SEGA at E3 back then, but not now. As both SEGA and E3 have heavily changed over the years.
He’s the vice chairman of Leapfrog, so while it’s not exactly in the video game industry like SEGA, he’s still in the electronic entertainment business, so a lot of the same rules apply.
And who ever said Kalinske is the only person qualified to give their professional opinion on SEGA going or not going to E3?
Nobody did.
You insinuated as much … before you edited your comments after I responded. 😐
I did edit my comment (not comments), but that was before you responded.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened.
Anyway, to clarify something in your original comment, I don’t think anyone here hates you. It’s more an annoyance that you only seemingly come around to post overly-critical comments. You’d be welcomed here if you took a more constructive approach, rather than only post to point out when you think someone made an error.
Don’t really know what to think about Sega already. When they bought Atlus they looked like a financially strong company, with a lot of future projects (they said they would allow Atlus to work in old Sega IPs), etc. Now, after the news of Sega of America staff being reduced, Sega not having a booth in the E3, no big upcoming titles annonced, etc, they again look as a company in serious trouble (sadly).