July 11, 2008
E3 2008: Pre-Show Thoughts
By
Louis Bedigian
Why the show is still exciting and what should
happen in 2009.
I’ve heard countless complaints from gamers who
wish E3 would go back to the overblown extravaganza it was in 2006 and years
prior. They look at it the same way I do: not as a journalist but as a gamer who
loved what was best described as the largest and most exciting arcade on Earth.
Most journalists didn’t think of it as such,
primarily because they were working too much to enjoy it. I’m not going to get
into the time constraint trauma, media room madness or bus riding blasphemy (a
problem the ESA alleviated by moving the show away from hotels and back to the
LA Convention Center this year) we journalists have to deal with. But I do want
to discuss the importance and excitement of this year’s show, as well as my
hopes (if not a prediction) for the future.
A look at the teeny-tiny E3 07
showcase at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica.
The Truth Is Out There
No, that wasn’t an X-Files reference, but rather
a reference to the question marks currently surrounding the most anticipated
games: Resident Evil 5, Gears of War II, Resistance II, The Force Unleashed, and
Soulcalibur IV, to name a few. Each of these games (along with a zillion others)
will finally get a more significant showing. Many will be playable, giving us a
chance to dissect the years of effort that have gone into these much-hyped
properties. Most importantly, we’ll get the first glimpse of brand-new games
that no one knows about until the moment they’re unveiled.
It’s these moments that make E3 a very exciting
event. And even though I preferred the old format (with enormous booths and an
overload of sights and sounds), the smaller show does have its perks. With fewer
booths to hit and fewer crowds to plow through, we’ll have more time to spend
with each game. This was instantly apparent during last year’s show when I was
able to score hands-on time with several games per publisher, and not just for
30 seconds each. Under the new format, publishers had more time and space to
dedicate to each journalist, allowing us to take advantage of the extra time we
were given.
That didn’t mean E3 wasn’t a challenge – to a
journalist, it is perhaps one of the most challenging "games" of all. After
seeing and/or playing a bunch of titles (of which you took many notes on), you
have to find a way to sort it all out and turn your thoughts into something
readable. And you have to do it fast — very fast in between meetings and long
after the show closes each night. It’s not like the average business meeting
where you work during the day and sleep at night. At E3, you just work.
Sleep is something you hope you have time for when you’re done.
Another look at the Barker Hangar
in 07. Oh the memories…
And for me it’s always been worth it. The new
format is less hectic, but I would jump at the chance to go back to the good old
days. I guess that’s where Penny Arcade Expo steps in, and not for the press but
for every gamer that wants to attend. Now that PAX 08 has scored nearly every
major publisher in the industry, it has unofficially become the "E3 for gamers,"
even more so than last year’s E for All, an exciting but small, consumer-based
version of the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Thus far, E for All 08 has
confirmed just one publisher’s attendance: Microsoft. Here’s hoping they beef up
their lineup before the show begins in early October.
If history is to repeat itself, these consumer
shows will be a partial offshoot of E3. In other words, some of the demos at E3
08 could end up at PAX and/or E for All. I wish I could tell you which, but I
doubt the publishers even know at this point. If a game is due for release in
October or November, its chances of appearing at a consumer show are fairly
high. But unless some publisher wants to "pull a Konami" and offer a special
treat (as Konami did last year with the MGS4 demo), you probably won’t get a
crack at too many 2009 releases. Let’s keep our thumbsticks crossed and hope we
get lucky.
Will daylight be scary in Resident
Evil 5? Or does Capcom have a dark twist planned for the game?
Can E3 Survive Another Year?
That’s what everyone wondered at this time last
year when E3 07 began. The question has been even more prominent this year ever
since Activision and a couple others pulled out, making the show even smaller
than it was last year.
As one TV reporter told me at a game event last
summer, "E3 isn’t the same anymore. We no longer have anything to shoot."
Without anything exciting to put on tape, their TV and Internet video coverage
is significantly less exciting than what it was in the years prior to E3’s
shrinkage, an ailment I like to call TSD: Trade Show Dysfunction.
Some journalists argue that at the end of the
day, the potential dollars earned from the old E3’s (every year before 2007)
publicity just aren’t worth it. They say that money could be better spent on
traditional advertising methods. But gaming isn’t a traditional medium. Games
don’t sell well because of a snazzy TV, Web or magazine ad campaign – they
sell well because they’re well-previewed. That’s what makes our medium so
unique: good games, and especially the really big games (good or bad), sell the
most based on what gamers read, watch or hear long before the game is released.
This includes game trailers, preview articles, interviews, news bits, and
anything else the industry can get the press to repeat.
"Oh, but you don’t need E3 for that." Of course
you don’t. Game publishers have annual "gamers’ days" (the name of which I find
hugely ironic considering they are only for the press, not all gamers) where
they promote one or more titles to the press. But regardless of what anyone
tells you, the announcement that "Nintendo blew us away at their gamers’ day"
just doesn’t have the same effect as "Nintendo blew us away at this year’s E3."
To blow us away at E3, that means they competed with everyone else and still
wowed attendees. To blow us away at their own show means they were
impressive…compared to what?
It’s that insane competition, many journalists
argued, that made the old E3 obsolete. (That, and the massive crowds and
enormous expenses, they whined.) But if competition was really an issue, why be
in the game industry at all? The overly crowded fall gaming season still exists.
The growing spring season exists. And this June, we saw a plethora of titles
released around the mammoth Konami hit, Metal Gear Solid 4 (a game that, as
every fan can tell you, was sold on everything Konami said and showed before its
release – the TV ads were just a reminder that it had finally come out).
Metal Gear Solid 4 leveraged the
power of multiple E3s, Tokyo Game Shows and one E for All (and other press and
consumer events) to promote the game well before its release.
Not only that but, back in the old days, E3 was
so big and well known that its name alone could increase magazine sales, TV
viewership and Web site traffic. No matter how effective, gamers’ days do not
hold that same power. At the old E3, there was something for everyone. If you
were an Xbox loyalist, MS was there. If all you cared about was PlayStation,
Sony was there and so on. You don’t get that kind of variety (or gamer
attention) from a one-publisher-only gamers’ day. So while publishers may get
more individual attention from the press at their own events, they’re getting
less overall attention from regular gamers — their biggest customer base.
Furthermore, the fact that Penny Arcade Expo has
gotten support from nearly every major publisher shows that game companies
really don’t mind competing for gamer attention, and apparently value the
publicity a major event provides. At the very least they seem happy just to get
their name (and their games) out there in a crowd of thousands. Believe it or
not, that’s what the old E3 – with its 50,000+ attendees each year – used to
accomplish, albeit without the official "open to the public" status.
So why not go back to the old E3, merge with a
bigger show, create a brand-new show, or something else along those lines?
That’s the million dollar question: why not make the change? Gamers crave it.
Developers like Hideo Kojima have been dying for it. Publishers like Gamecock
have all but admitted that’s what they want to happen. Gamecock’s own event –
which is being held concurrently with but separately from E3 – is being referred
to as the "BE-3 Initiative."
Sounds like we need to get E3 a prescription for
some little blue pills.
For All E3
2008 News and Announcements
