If you haven't heard about the news about E3, you might want to sit down for this blog post. Everybody else, go get the large soup spoon and the tub of ben and jerry's. When I heard yesterday morning that E3 would no longer be a mega show, I was initally convinced by the snappy comments from the powers that be that, no, this will no longer be a circus, as if it were clowns instead of booth babes marching down the isles. Popcorn aside, E3 has been cut to size, allowing only about 5000 attendees, taking place during the summer, and focusing more on larger companies with products to pitch. The phrase I wish to pitch to them rhymes with clucking bell. The E3 we know and love is dead now, no massive trade floors with thousands of people competing to play a new game about rolling balls or playing guitars. There will be no week in our lives that seems to be to distant to affect us, a copy of a copy of a copy. Our energy and our time was focused on how many hitpoints the boss was going to have, or if the sandwich had a crispness and freshness rating. The week was like Christmas, the world cup, and prostitiution day wrapped into one. You had your home team, the team you wanted to lose, and everybody went home happy. Now, all we have left is the husk of a dream, most likely never to be filled. Mellodrama aside, I'm ashamed that E3 would take this direction, because the show allowed for smaller name companies to get their products in the open. Now that the show seems to be devoted to the big names like Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Konami, Capcom, and what have you I doubt that smaller companies will ever have a chance. Whether the consequence was intended or not, the result is depressing. There will be other gameshows, like the TGS, or the Microsoft or Konami one, but they never had the power E3 had, and they never will. Truly, with the martyrdom of the greatest symbol in gaming, I mourn the passing of one era, and hope that in death we find life in another.