Santa Monica (CA) – E3, the formerly fantastic game expo where tens of thousands of people attended, just keeps getting smaller and lamer.  According to GameSpot, Vivendi has announced that it will not be attending this year’s E3 show.  This also means Activision won’t be attending the show this coming July.  But the bad news doesn’t stop there, because the companies also announced that they will be dropping out of the Entertainment Software Association, the organization that manages E3 and lobbies for the video game industry.

E3 has been through tremendous changes in the past few years.  The show had been held at the Los Angeles Convention Center where it attracted approximately 60,000 people in 2006.  Under the leadership of ESA President Mike Gallagher, the expo was rebranded into the much smaller invite-only E3 Media & Business Summit and was held in Santa Monica California.  This year, the show returns to the Los Angeles Convention Center on July 15th to 17th, but regular gamers will still be shut out as it remains an invitation only show.

World of Warcraft developer, Blizzard Entertainment, will also not be attending because it is owned by Activision.  And since Activision is based in nearby Santa Monica, it will be having its own editors day at its headquarters - coincidentally this will be held on the first day of E3.

Other companies have also announced that they will not be attending E3.  These include online games maker NCSoft, Foundation 9 and Her Interactive.  Initial reports stated that ID Software would skip the show, but the company has since confirmed their attendance.

Oh E3 how we missed the boothbabes, Army helicopters and rapelling soldiers.

Source – Gamespot.