E3

 E3 has appeared to have been floundering since the end of the "Big E3" era. All the glamour (and cute booth girls) seems to have been sucked out of it. Consumers have been excluded from the "bi(g)?" event and are relegated to a smaller event well after the main show, probably to be held in some aging shopping mall, with displays similar to junior high student's "Science Fair" projects.

Is that really all that bad? Personally I think this will be good for the gaming industry. Money for the big shows came from publishers pulling money out of every game in their stables accounts. However, the smaller budget games didn't receive any tangible benefits from the show as the one or two major titles in the publishers stock received all the display footage and pr press. Thus the smaller games funded the larger games prominent displays and advertising, while the smaller companies were relegated to the "kids dinner card table" in the far corner away from the "grown ups". The press was bombarded with 6 hour "premier events" and had little time to cover anything else. Consumers? Oh yeah, lets throw a few toys on the floor and ask them to play quietly. If you were good, maybe you could get some stickers, game demos, or some other worthless trinket that will lose it's luster and wind up in the corner of your junk drawer.

The revamped E3 should allow for a more equal allocation of money to the smaller games. The events for each game will be dramatically reduced, thus allowing more time for the press to cover more games. Which means we will get a better overview of what lays ahead for us in the coming year. That certainly can't be a bad thing. What are we going to do with all that extra info? Duh! We are heading to the shopping mall! Besides being located in the suburbs and being meccas for obscene consumerism, what's wrong with a mall? Especially a mall that will house a gaming show that is focused on the consumer instead of the world press. What? The publishers will talk to you? The "swag" isn't just pencils and stickers? I can meet some of the actual designers/coders of the games you are excited about?

Sign me up! I will meet you over at the Cinnabon Shop (but I refuse to meet you at the Gap).

I am ROP xbl10kclub, a proud member of the first and largest gamer score community, Xbox Live 10k Club (you should come join the best gaming community in the world, just follow the link for ungodly amounts of fun, bad humor, and gaming tips/point runs). I am a old, bald gaming curmudgeon. I will be trying to bring you news concerning the best gaming platform in the world, the Xbox 360.

Hey What are you reading this for??? GET BACK TO GAMING!