Okay... So the title may be a little harsh, but this year's E3 has been a sad comparison to the years before. In previous years, E3 was a massive entertainment expo held at the LA Convention Center, with 60000+ attendees, and was for us gamers, an absolute cavalcade of information about games, surprise announcements, and jaw dropping tech demos.
Every year, I would look forward to E3 both online and in local game magazines for giving me the best news of the year.... It seemed as if every publisher out there was striving to have the most impressive demonstration, and every publisher was putting out the big bucks to fill the booths with scantily clad booth babes (and.. once, a very scantily clad Conan.) This year... There were very few surprises, and quite a few of the big names (eg Vivendi, Activision (inc. Blizzard)) held their own conferences or chose to defer to having their displays at the GDC earlier this year.
2006 was the last year of the impressive press event that was E3, and was one of the most interesting and progressive things that there was to show... How many developers went into massive crunch periods to have that E3-award-stealing demo in the past? This year... The number of exclusive, and new E3 demos was... well.. minimal.. The only one that really stood out was Fallout 3.. Which was hot.
The ESA are now in discussions about how to restructure E3... If they even choose to continue the format.. Personally, I'd like to see a week long E3, which starts with the open floor of past E3s... Allowing a huge chunk of the industry to see up and coming games, annoucements, and their ilk, and then a two day, press-only follow up (after maybe 3 days of open floor) where there can be summary confrences and last-minute announcements (Hey... perfect time for the big surprises). What're your thoughts?
And... Expect a vlog veerrry soon *looks mysterious and is sure you're sick of this soon business*
