E3 will be open to the public this year

Do you know how all the journalists that attend E3 always say they wish more people would show up and crowd the convention halls even more? Yeah, me either. But hey, that's what the ESA wants to do.

For the first time, the public can officially purchase a pass to the premier gaming event of the Summer and walk the halls of the Los Angeles convention center.

In reality, E3 was pretty lax in the early days on letting people in so you'd see many that weren't journalists or part of the gaming industry wandering around. In fact, I want to say you could have purchase a pass in the very early days for a lot of money. But, this year's E3 will be known as the first official public attended E3.

If you can pony up $250, or $150 on February 13th, you'll be able to get in no questions asked. 

While I'm all for the public being able to attend, I'd love to see a few days setup just for the press to get in and do their thing as needed. Too much time is spent waiting around and this is not going to improve on that situation, I don't think. 

The news doesn't make me anxious to get out there though, so I'll probably be skipping the event again this year, like a few publishers have done in the past. Will this move bring back some of the heavyweights in the gaming industry? We'll have to wait and see.