A new E3?
Apparently, there’s going to be an announcement about E3 2009 later tonight/early tomorrow. Current rumors seem to point to it being open to the public (for a fee), which means it’ll be much closer to things like Games Convention Leipzig and PAX. Personally, I dug this year’s event WAY more than the previous events, but I recognize that I’m in the minority.
As such, my personal E3 “wish list” would be:
– Hold it anywhere – literally, ANYWHERE – but Los Angeles. I realize there’s next to no chance of that happening, but I despise that city more than any other place on earth. And I’ve been to THREE cities in Alabama.
– Four day show (Thursday-Sunday).
– Days 1 and 2, press and pros only. This will give companies time to make “whiz bang” announcements and to do dedicated interviews without being swamped by fans.
– Days 3 and 4, open to the public. This should be plenty of time for fans to see everything and bringing them in at the end gives the press an incentive to get E3 coverage out quickly to help direct fans to the best stuff on the floor.
– “Backstage” area with decent security for press and pros to continue doing interviews and presentations far away from the thumping techno madness of the show floor. No public access on any day.
– Maintain reasonable booth babe restrictions. Trust me, people will want to take pictures with your booth babe, even if she’s wearing as many as THREE postage stamps worth of costume. Borderline nude models create nightmare bottlenecks all over the floor and make us all seem creepy and weird.
– Seating for the public. LOTS of it. In dedicated, strategically-placed areas that are away from main walkways. PAX does this very well and it gives the “tired feet and DS loving” masses somewhere to rest up without creating human pyramids in the middle of every hallway and alcove.
– ANYWHERE but LA. Hey, it can’t hurt to ask twice.
I guess that’s it. If nothing else, this SHOULD mean the death of E For All, which was 1000 times worse than any E3.
SITE RULES UPDATE.
This is just a quick heads up for my readers regarding my comment moderation policy.
I generally dont edit or censor anything folks have to say in the comments on my blog (aside from excessive profanity) so long as the comments are on-topic regarding the post they appear in. I have and will continue to delete comments that are off-topic, particularly comments aimed at dragging drama in from other places, but also comments that are aimed at circumventing the established support systems that exist for WAR/Mythic/EA/etc.
Im not the right person to come to for tech support and such and my blog isnt a venue for general public ranting. There are plenty of other, better places for your voices to be heard if you have concerns or opinions that are related to WAR, but not to what Im writing about specifically.
So, if youve noticed that a comment was either deleted or never posted at all, its almost certainly because the comment was off-topic and didnt belong here.
Twittering.
I must admit that I am disproportionately pleased with Twitter. In many ways, the strict limitations of the system encourage me to post more. There’s something about the microblog format that frees you to offer up a much more frequent, if less dense, amount of content on the fly.
I think it’ll be extremely interesting to use during the launch of WAR – fragments and glimpses of unvarnished front-line reportage, launched out at break-neck speed throughout the event. Of course, if things go WELL that day, my hope would be that no one would be watching Twitter feeds due to… you know… playing the game. But still, it’s something to look forward to.
Anywho, if you haven’t already, hop on Twitter. It’s not as ridiculous as it sounds when someone first explains it to you, I promise.
MBJ blogs!
If you haven’t seen it yet, Mark Jacobs (Mythic’s Lead Designer and GM) has started a new blog!
E3 – The Week After.
Short version:
I liked the new E3. It featured enough serious press to make it worthwhile for us to attend, while remaining lean enough to not require a staff of hundreds to man a $5 million booth.
Longer version:
I actually blogged live from the event all week, over at TenTonHammer, so feel free to catch up with specifics there if you haven’t already.
The new E3 worked really well for us. We were able to give actual interviews and demonstrations, without having to scream over trillion-decibel techno music or wade through tens of thousands of people to get anywhere. We make games that can’t be summed up in a twenty second “whiz bang” trailer, so having the chance to sit down and talk for 15 minutes or more with each journalist was really helpful.
There are people who argue that without the over the top spectacle of previous years the show loses “value” for developers who choose to attend. Maybe those folks are right, but I have a hard time imagining a situation where ANY game that’s actually well-made and enjoyable wouldn’t be better suited by getting actual attention from the media rather than spending a million bucks developing a more effective swag cannon or having the army of bikini-clad models drop into their booth on zip-lines. It’s true that in the past more media overall attended, but to what end? They weren’t there looking at the games, they were covering the aforementioned spectacle. Getting the show on national TV does exactly nothing to help developers in attendance.
Now, don’t get me wrong – the new event is imperfect. It should be dropped down to 2 days total and the venue should be changed. I don’t think we need to send it back to hotels, but the convention center is simply too large for it at this point and holding it there only serves to make it feel less important than it is. I’ve heard rumblings that the show is now “dead” (but we heard that in 2006 and 2007 as well) or that it’s going to return to its Past Glory. I think either would be a shame, because it’s REALLY close to being a great event right now, even if it isn’t the sexiest thing in the gaming world anymore.
Know where you came from.
I was fussing about at home over the weekend and I came across an old notebook of mine from years and years ago that had – among other things – quotes and snippets of wisdom that I thought were applicable to making video games. There are a bunch of Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes comics in it, as well as a bunch of old Bartle Test navel-gazing, among other things.
On the inside cover, however, was probably my favorite bit:
GOOD DESIGN:
1) Fulfills its function.
2) Respects its materials.
3) Is suited to method of production.
4) Combines these in imaginative expression.
It’s a quote from Eliot Noyes – one of the lions of mid-20th century industrial design – and as far as I’m concerned, every producer, designer, artist and creative director in the video game industry should have it tattooed to the inside of their eyelids.
T for Teen
There’s an ever-shifting set of predictable questions that I tend to get whenever I do interviews with the gaming press or fan sites. One of the perennial questions that stays on the list relates to why we’ve targeted WAR at a “T” (for teens) audience.