I’ve only been to one ‘old school’ E3 event, and while it was pretty neat being able to schmooze with other game developers I could not imagine what it would be like to actually work the thing. Rushing from meeting to meeting, press conference to press conference, interview to interview, all to get what is essentially the same information as everyone else. There are only so many ways you can interpret the same information. Elysium from Gamers With Jobs has the right idea
Covering E3, even for a relatively low-maintenance audience like GWJ … is a hell of a lot of work. I’m not complaining exactly, because in the process I get to play video games still months from release, but there’s a lot of jockeying through understaffed PR folks to see canned demos by over-tired developers who’ve spent too many hours over the past three months just trying to make their E3 demos look good.
And in the end, from the uncomfortable chairs of the media center, my olfactory processes abused by the stench of sweat and stale caffeinated drinks, I end up reporting basically the same information as everyone else.
So, while I could create dozens of posts about how this game or that game looks great or looks terrible. I’ll let the other guys do that. Much less stressful that way.
Link! (GWJ)