So the dust has settled this weekend as another E3 wraps up. Did you manage to catch any of the action? Did you care? Were you like me, disappointed because the hype didn't meet with your expectations? All in all a tame E3 expo which was only a shadow of it's former self. Sure there were announcements: Disney movies, Wii-Fit, Echochrome to name a few, it just didn't have the wow factor I'm sure everyone was expecting. Sure we all knew it wouldn't be the same, they told us as much last year. We just didn't think it'd have the energy of a
Librarian Convention during a snowstorm.
Reading the various articles from all over the web, it seemed many journalists, industry professionals and various other attendees found it cramped, poorly planned and lacking in participation. Gone are the booth babes many considered to be the
backbone of the show, the showmanship that attracts large crowds of fanboys drooling, jeering and cheering for their favorite systems and of course the big games never before unveiled.
The most exciting moment for me was when I read that a truck pulling into a hotel underground parking was too high for the ceiling clearance and smashed into the building, good times....good times... Perhaps if Chewbacca went nuts and started biting people's heads off the crowd the PSP redesign would've been more exciting. Maybe if Peter Moore and band didn't suck at Rock Band so much it would've been entertaining. Or perhaps if the first quarter of an hour of the Nintendo press where Reggie rehashed sales figures he used words like "destroy" "annihilate" and "vanquish" it would've been more like a pep rally and less like a infomercial. "With Wii-Fit
we will destroy our competitors this holiday season!!". Sounded good didn't it?
Sales pitches, hands-on gameplay and news is all fine, but E3 used to also be about the celebration of gaming, something we all have in common regardless of who's products we buy. The glamour of seeing your favorite celebrity or sports star getting his ass handed to him by a geek, or a total dork with a booth babe on each arm. Live bands, out of the blue announcements, WTF moments, memorable quotes and cool swag. Not hotel room armchair interviews, poor PR handling and bad camera angles for the conferences.
I've ranted long enough, so let me summarize: E3 2008 needs
soul,
celebration and most importantly
competitive spirit in order to survive. Otherwise turn the show over to the suits behind closed doors and move the action to Leipzig (GC2007) and TGS (Tokyo Game Show) and let someone else host the next big North American gaming event in '08.
