Should E3 open its gates to the public?

With E3 2016 wrapped up, a question comes to mind: will E3 ever be open to the general public again? Although there are many great and legitimate reasons for E3 to be closed to the public, I tend to think it should go back to being open.

A year ago, E3 opened its doors to the public — but with a catch. The Entertainment Software Association (or ESA) had let 4,000-5,000 fans attend the expo, but only on an “Invite only” basis. So if you worked at a company and they had a booth, you could have gotten a pass to attend.

This is a step up from being only open to the press and various other important people in the industry, but it’s not enough.

E3 is a place to be for casual and hardcore gamers alike. Yeah, the world can watch the press conferences online via live streams and recaps and by reading articles — but that doesn’t compare to experiencing it first-hand. This is something can be changed in a few ways if the industry is willing to implement them in a trial period to see if they can make it work.

Option 1 is through a raffle. Raffle off 5,000-8,000 tickets to random fans across the world. The raffle can be done by filling out a post card at your local GameStop, on the PlayStation Store, Xbox Live Marketplace, or etc. This could easily work if safeguards were put in place so that everyone could only fill out the raffle info once. Sure, some people might be able to cheat the system — but its 2016, I’m sure they can beat the cheaters.

Option 2 is to hold small gaming tournaments — and whoever gets first, second and third place in each will get tickets to E3. Perhaps what ranking they got could determine how many guests those winners could bring, whether or not they got a hotel room, etc.

The list of different viable options can go on and on. Hopefully one day in our lifetime E3 can be opened to the public so everyone can get the feeling and satisfaction of going to the largest Expo for gaming. Or at the very least, they have a better shot at it than they do now.

What are your thoughts on E3 opening its doors to the rest of us? Do you think it’s fine the way things are now, or do you have an idea on how the public can go? Comment below.

Until next time, Tune into GameSkinny!