May 14, 2009

Readers are the real winners during the upcoming E3
By Michael Lafferty

It’s chaos unleashed … or at least it could be

It's almost June and during that first week of the month, I will truly envy GameZone readers. While you get to sit in a comfy chair, reading all the stories that come out of E3, there will be several of us from GameZone in the trenches generating those stories - putting up with the crowds, the noise, the flashing lights, the pandemonium all to bring you information about the games coming out in the near future.

Of course, gamers have this conception of what E3 is, and in many regards they could be right. It’s a cacophony infused with almost overwhelming visceral stimuli. At least, it once was and if the ESA is true to its word, it will return to that this year.

E3 is when the publishers trot out the games that may be coming out in the coming year, or games they are working on and have in good enough shape to show off to the media. It’s supposed to be a media-centric trade event, but that idea is sometimes fractured.

Over the past two years, the ESA tried to redefine the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), and create a more temperate climate that would be conducive to working media talking to publishers and developers about their games. The event was moved to Santa Monica, spread out through several hotels and suffered from traveling woes. Why? The buses between the appointed venues didn’t always run on time and it was easier to walk 12 blocks or more in the heat to make an appointment on time rather than wait for a bus that would get you there late. While the show was much calmer, it almost felt like the event was wobbling on legs that would not long support it. In 2008, the event returned to the Los Angeles Convention Center, but there were huge rules put on the displays and the entire atmosphere was eerily quiet. It sort of flopped, and seemed to underscore the idea that E3 was going to be a thing of the past.

Undaunted, the ESA is trying yet again, allowing the show to return to the pandemonium that marked it as an incredible spectacle during the first few years that I attended the show (which started in 2000).

Let me try to give you a sense of what those first shows were like – before I started to become jaded and battle-weary from the forced march from one end of the Convention Center to the other for meetings. When it comes to the sound, imagine being at a music festival based on a ‘battle of the bands’ type of format. Now imagine that instead of one act following another, all the bands are playing at once … and you are standing in the middle of their speaker columns … all of them.

Yep, it’s loud and sometimes you have to strain to hear what tour guides are telling you about games.

As for the visceral elements … E3 was like a carnival where everything was bigger and bolder and trying to outdo the next booth. There were visual surprises and treats, as well as those sights that left one shaking their heads in amazement, wondering what that spectacle had to do with gaming.

The public relations folks, the ones conducting the tours, stretch and strain their voices trying to speak over the noise and by the third day of the event, some of them can barely speak – which makes listening to them all the harder. The convention center itself is a fair size and after marching from one end to another, it can be a bit wearing. Too much to see, too little time to write – it all adds up to an event that is taxing.

Which is why I envy the reader … you benefit from reading all the news and reviews being pumped out, without having to put in the leg-work to get the stories. You may miss the chaos, but you get demos and see what is at the heart and soul of the event – the games.

Lucky you.

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Also Check out: Badge of Honor

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