After all, aren't you currently slap bang in the middle of the most biggest, noisiest, most thrilling spectacle the combined might of the entire European video games industry can put on? Aren't there a thousand incredibly exciting, imaginative and diverse new games out there to be looking at? Aren't there hundreds of little "VIP-only" secret corporate hospitality dens to be drinking dry? Aren't there dozens and dozens of statutesque models out there simply dying to have their photograph taken with you? Haven't you, in short, got anything better to do than sit around reading a trade newspaper?

Thing is, of course, you're probably sitting around reading a trade newspaper precisely BECAUSE you're slap bang in the middle of the biggest, noisiest, most thrilling spectacle the combined might of the entire European etc etc. Your head's probably throbbing, your eyes are probably watering from the constant pulsing lights and flashbulbs, you're probably in a state of near-panic wondering how you're going to get back on schedule and make your 23 remaining appointments in the 42 minutes you've got left after that ill-advised quick lunchtime drink turned into a 2-hour tequila marathon, and you've probably forgotten the names of 18 of the 21 Command And Conquer clones you've politely feigned interest in today already. Stopping for a quiet read is probably the only chance you've got to make it to the end of the day without having a heart attack.

So why do it? Why sit around for 11 months of the year doing nothing very much except chalking off the days until the Christmas season starts, then charge around like a maniac trying to do a year's business in three days in an environment that front-line war correspondents would go on strike over? Why, in short, have the ECTS at all?

This thorny little poser is a question that's been puzzling me for a while, Valued Colleagues and fellow Members Of The Industry. Shows like ECTS and E3 are trade-only affairs, and the exclusion of the nasty, smelly, oiky public who actually buy the games is presumably to facilitate the doing of business. Yet where in the world could you imagine a place less suited to the doing of business that a videogames trade show? The noise is deafening and chaotic (as everyone tries to blast their neighbours into submission), there's so much to see that you're lucky if you can spend five minutes with every game you want to look at, and by the morning of the second day practically everyone you meet is walking around with a monster hangover and an extraordinarily pressing desire to be somewhere else.

And what do the publishers get out of it? They spend terrifying amounts of money on flimsy polystyrene stands that serve little purpose other than corporate willy-waving and parboiling the unfortunate staff who have to stand there for three solid days churning out the same old spiel to the same old faces, pausing only to wipe down the stale sweat that's perpetually cascading down the walls. They waste weeks and weeks building presentations for games that shell-shocked reps are going to look at for perhaps 30 seconds and that they'll have totally forgotten about before they've finished eating the promotional lollipop. (And that's if they're lucky, and the intended prey hasn't been distracted by some tanned and glistening promotional breasts and missed his appointment entirely). Surely there's a better way of doing things than this?

This view is one that seems to be gaining favour within the industry, too. Nearly every show has at least one notable absence (although most years, this has been more a case of geography than policy, that is, companies taking out big hotel suites near the show, just not actually physically being there in the hall with all the riff-raff), but this year, the number of missing (and genuinely missing, not just round the corner) big guns is bigger than ever. Electronic Arts, Virgin and Activision are just three of the huge, premier-division publishers who've decided not to show up this year, or - and here's the crucial bit - for the forseeable future. With EA hiding behind an official press release on the subject and Virgin in chaos, I spoke to Activision's Janine Johnson about this seeming turn away from the industry's previous headlong charge towards ever more conspicuous, bullish decadence.

CTW: Janine, why did Activision decide not to take a stand at ECTS this year?

JJ: It really comes down to focus. It's been a great year, and we have a
lot to great games to show and talk about. So we tried to think of the
ideal forum to get our message across, and it wasn't ECTS. While the
volume of people from the industry is there, it is almost impossible to
get any quality time with them. It's not the best environment with all
of the noise and other distractions, and of course, with everyone in the same place, you spend a lot of time demoing your games to your competitors. So we decided to host our own event.

CTW: Our invites must have got lost in the post. What event was that?

JJ:We held an event called Activate '98 in July, which was Activision's
opportunity to show its range of PC and console titles to a large number
of journalists, retailers and distributors from across Europe, about 150
guest in all. We picked Dublin as the venue for the event because we found a fantastic castle there, which provided the ideal environment to show off the games. Each game could be shown in a different room and the castle itself was also great for entertaining.

CTW: I'll bet. It must have been an environment much more conducive to really getting people into the games, compared to the mad rush of ECTS.

JJ: The attendees were divided into small groups and a lead member of each production team, who had come over from the US, gave the demos. The feedback from the attendees has been fantastic - they really got a chance to see and understand the games, build relationships with the Activision staff and everyone had a great time too.

CTW: It can't have been cheap flying a huge pack of press all the way over to Dublin and hiring out a big castle for them to play in, though. How did it compare with the cost of setting up a significant presence at the show? And how much DOES it actually cost to set up a significant presence at a show anyway? I mean, polystyrene can't be THAT expensive, can it? And there's a limit to how much even thirsty journalists can drink on one stand in three days, surely.

JJ: When you add everything in, ECTS costs hundreds of thousands of pounds to achieve a significant presence. We actually spent about the same on Activate '98 as we would have at ECTS.

CTW: Good lord. It must have been quite a party. Presumably, though, from your point of view, you're getting a much better return on your money, in terms of what you achieve from having everyone concentrating on purely Activision products for the whole time?

JJ: Exactly. From a PR point of view, the amount of time journalists spend on your stand at a trade show is anywhere between 30 minutes to 1 hour. With an average of 10 games to show each journalist, it naturally follows that the time spent on each game is going to be a maximum of 3-6 minutes per game, which with a PC game is hardly long enough to get the thing loaded, far less give a decent impression of any sophisticated gameplay that might be going on (and of course, you can knock that down to about 20 seconds if it crashes a couple of times too, as they always do).

CTW: And even then, unless you catch them early on Sunday, how much of that 3 minutes is going to sink in anyway?

JJ: Indeed. Not only are you having to contend with the noise coming from your own stand, but also all the noise emanating from the surrounding stands, so it certainly is not an ideal place to do business.

CTW: Well, it's easy enough to see what you get out of NOT going to a show. The question is, since the majority of companies still do, what DO you get out of it? What's the upside?

JJ: A show provides an opportunity to meet journalists with whom you normally only communicate by phone or e-mail - this is especially true of press from outside of the UK. And it does provide a useful opportunity to meet developers who are looking for publishing or distribution deals.