first published in The Gamer's Quarter, issues 2 and 6
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One of the perks of working on a game publication, even a small one like The Gamer's Quarter, is to go see E3, the videogame event of the year. It's the Mecca of videogame fans ever since game magazines first published information about it back when it first spawned its own convention from out of CES. Of course, no one realizes how much the event has turned into just a giant media blitz with every company trying its hardest to catch the limelight with flashy, million dollar booths, half naked women wearing paraphernalia loosely related to what they're promoting, and lots and lots of noise. The event that was once supposed to inform the gaming public about what they'll be playing for the rest of the year ended up just becoming a giant showcase of overindulgence and exploitation. It's almost a nice thing that the whole thing fell apart as companies finally realized this year that they were paying too much just to get no attention from the media at all. In any case, together with the Team Gamer's Quarter, we covered the event for the last two years. 2005 was a very dry year for E3. It was the year before a console launch and no one really cared about what was going to come out; the long arms of the crazy console war of the impending year loomed nigh. Because of this, E3 was even more of a spectacle than usual as every company tried to show off what little nothing they had in as ridiculously flashy way as possible. I never felt so spoiled and disgusted with myself in my entire life. 2006, on the other hand, had the glory of new systems to outshine the corruption of everything. |
