E3 is officially dead
Two weeks out of E3 I feel like I need to say something. Years ago E3 was the big event for gamers. I remember fondly back to E3 2005 where the PlayStation 3 became official, Spore was announced, the glamour was at it’s high, and Epics new graphics engine was demonstrated. Now that E3 has been hacked to bits and turned from the industry’s largest trade show into a giant press conference where absolutely nothing is exciting anymore. It is possible that this year is a bit of a transition year. The seventh generation consoles starting to seriously establish themselves as opposed to being new. But that is only one thing that lowers the impact that a large Video Game trade show. This is the year that software should be coming out to impress the fanboys and convince those of us who have held back from picking between Microsoft and Sony to finally decide. What we got was a mess.
This year almost no new game was announced at E3, no game changing announcements were made, and nothing was really accomplished that couldn’t have been done if each of the big three simply hosted their own small press conferences instead of having to drag all of their staff and equipment to this so called “trade show”.
Nintendo announced Animal Crossing, Sony Announced DC Universe Online, Microsoft announced nothing… who cares? The show was mainly made up of companies showing off new footage or featuring playable demos of games that were announced months (or in the case of Spore years) ago. There is no reason to treat E3 2008 as a special event, it’s just a mess of small updates to a couple dozen upcoming games.
One of the most insane examples is from the latest installment of the Total War series, Empire: Total War. It has been one of my favorite franchises for years now. Total War games have had the same basic game since Rome: Total War. The new edition sets the game in the age where Europe was building Empires across the world. Navel battles have been expanded to be as in depth and complex as land battles. At E3 they showed off… a navel battle. A feature we already knew was going to be in the game. Things got a little more detailed on the way the navel battles were going to look but nothing substantial was gained that Total War couldn’t have done in a press release, or in a new trailer. This is the kind of silly announcements that plagued E3, to the point where I just stopped caring after day two.
E3 used to be important. But if it continues to be anything like this year than it will stop being important. It’ll just become a hassle. The industry is going to have to take a step back and look really hard at this years E3 and made a decision if next year will even be worth anyone’s time. Maybe 2008 was just a stale year for announcements. Maybe because of the constant blog coverage these announcements just fell flat for me but would have been exciting for someone who doesn’t constantly watch gaming blogs. I’m underwhelmed, I’m frustrated. E3 used to be something special, not an excuse to show off games we already know were coming.
I’m not the only one who feels this way, nor are any of my comments original when you look at the great sigh of disappointment that happened after the dust settled on E3. If I was there I’m sure it would have been exciting. The stars of The Totally Rad Show seemed like they had a blast. But as a lonely second rate Blogger I don’t have any hope of gaining a ticket to the show. There is no reason why anyone who wasn’t there to play with these long awaited titles to be excited about E3. It’s an excuse to allow the press access to games that won’t be seen any time soon. An insider trade show where consumers no longer wanted.
