Last year E for All started with a bang. Actually, it was more like a pop - a very tiny pop. But it was their first year and everyone seemed to have a good time so we cut them some slack and figured they’d be back bigger and better next year. However, at the moment this doesn’t seem to be the case as a list of all the vendors confirmd to attend the event this year has popped up and it’s a grand total of two. Yup, Microsoft and EA is it, with Ubisoft still undecided. Ouch.

The E for All people aren’t worried though. “We’re expecting a great event,” says Carolyn Rauch, VP of Event Development for the expo. “Everything is going well for E for All this year. We’re thrilled to have Microsoft on board for the first time, have a healthy exhibitor list on our site, and expect more exhibitor announcements to be forthcoming.” However, if you hop over to that healthy list you may wonder if Ms. Rauch believes a bed ridden 90-year-old to be in good health. Aside from EA and Microsoft it’s mostly very small publishers and gaming schools. Hopefully those other exhibitors are some interesting game companies despite what the confirmation list says.

If E for All really wants to succeed it should propbably look into not being scheduled around the exact same time as PAX and the Tokyo Game Show. Those are two major and proven conventions that developers flock to. How about having E for All during a down time? It would be great for developers to keep fans still interested in games despite the lack of conventions and releases, and it would allow fans to not have to blow massive amounts of money all at once to get to these things. Makes sense to me.