You never really appreciate something until it’s gone – or in this case, chased from a city by angry press with torches and pitchforks.
As E3 showed up, sputtered, then crept out of Los Angeles, hanging its head in dejected embarrassment, industry bloggers and reporters of every stripe were panning this years offering from the Electronic Software Association. Some pontificated on the trade show’s demise, that this year’s incarnation was merely its death-throes as it has become a weary, tired beast in desperate need of being tied to a tree and mercifully shot.
Puzzlingly, the ESA seems to be the favored whipping boy when it is the developers who showed up ala the Emperor, wearing nary but a smile.
There is no doubt that E3 has been suffering from a degenerative illness as of late, but one that can hardly be blamed on the substantive lack of “booth-babes.” The truth is that the offerings from the Big Three have been mediocre at best and at worst a bloviating scrum of corporate narcissism. How else could anyone characterize the Nintendo conference? Microsoft was little better, and Sony continued to march merrily, if not obstinately, off a cliff called “denial.” Is it the ESA’s fault that Nintendo didn’t show up without a new Zelda title, but rather a rhythm game that requires no rhythm at all? That Microsoft steps on its own shoelaces by face-palming developing studios to eagerly covet a news cycle heralding the weakness of a vaunted enemy? That Sony is eagerly trying to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic? These are not failures of the ESA or E3, but developers who are more interested in public perception than providing that public what it wants: fun.
We in the gaming press must also shoulder a measure of culpability for laying so much failure at the feet of the ESA when it is the offal rendered by others that is responsible for the stench we cannot stomach.
With a different pair of eyes you can see that, if anything, E3 has somehow garnered more mainstream corporate and political credibility. While the keynote was attended with as much fervor as a Foghat reunion tour it was interesting that the speaker was the Governor of Texas. And while this may not lend any interest to the gaming media echo-chamber, the presence of Gov. Rick Perry is important. As the industry is facing attacks on multiple fronts can it really afford to cast off E3 as it gains much-needed political capitol for not only itself, but for the rest of us?
I agree that E3 is need of change, but that change must be brought about by developers; to show up with exciting titles and technical surprises that make us sit up and take notice. The ESA is doing its job by providing a venue in which the industry may show up and show off, it is up to the industry to impress us. Blaming the ESA for a tepid E3 is folly. If you have succumbed to that line of drivel you might as well blame the ESA for global warming or killer bee’s from Argentina.
In 2009 developers will have the chance to relegate the unwashed masses as it has been rumored that the public will be able to attend in all their fanboy glory, and perhaps that is for the best: a novelty that the public would be able to hiss in disapproval or clap in delight, undiluted by the jaded – and complicit – gaming press. Perhaps then developers will take E3 more seriously as the very people they depend on will be there, hovering expectantly for the latest and the greatest.
In the end, those culpable for the death of E3 will not be the ESA; it will be the developers holding the smoking gun.
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