I just don't understand why you would go to this show as a member of the public. It's comparatively expensive versus other shows (though not hideously compared to before), and the problem has always been - even before they let the public in, ever since the show shrunk and then re-grew to full convention size again - that all the really juicy stuff is appointment-only, behind-closed doors, or the lines are ridiculously long. The last couple of public years it's been painful to speak to those who feel like they've been hoodwinked: they turn up and it's a 7-hour wait to play 20 minutes of Mario Odyssey, and Cyberpunk 2077 is appointment only, etc etc.
Admittedly some companies have managed this better than others - like Square Enix had people line up at the start of the day, gave out timed tickets first-come, first-served - so you could grab a ticket at 9am that would get you on FF7 at 3pm and then go off and do something else rather than queue all day. But when I see the ESA talking about shit like "quetainment" I'm just like man, what. I've been to 11 years of E3 as industry/media, this year will be my twelfth, and I've always felt - even before it went public - it was a miserable show to go to if you didn't have appointments.
The media-only day is gonna be great for people like me, as I'll cram and try to get work done all in that day. This is helped by there being loads less at the show, too... there's less work to get done. Five years ago, you'd never get everything done in a day. Now we stand a chance. The flip side is when the lines are 7 hours long for the hottest stuff, it'd be easy for somebody on a gamer pass to go to E3 and see/play a grand total of two games.
But even then, E3 is a show that is searching for its identity and a public-friendly setup that truly works... and honestly, I would always advise people to not go until they truly find that. They're making sweeping changes this year, seemingly, but nobody knows what those changes will be in full yet... so maybe wait and see if it works, and it it does, go next year. If the money is burning a hole in your pocket there are so many other great video game and gaming culture shows you can go to that are designed for the public. Do one of those!
