The big, ‘exciting’ part of E3 is over and Cameron Teague and I are pissed (again). This is why.
Seb: So all the big E3 conferences are finally over, and I’m pissed off, how about you?
Cam: I am just thankful that this is the year I missed out on traveling to E3, what a disappointment. The only thing that could have been worse would have been a performance by Usher..
Seb: Haha, yeah, what on earth was that? He missed out on lyrics and flailed around like a fish out of water. In fact, why do publishers and platform holders shove dancing into every single bloody show every single bloody year. This time it was Usher, Flo Rida and some random dancing girls in MS, Ubi’s and Ninty’s conferences respectively. It’s horrible, and it never works. Fuck off dancers, let me see my games.
Cam: It’s like publishers and platforms holder keep holding out hope that the little dancer in us all wants to jump out and do the stomp. We are there as nerds, some of which never see the sun or an exercise machine and they keep throwing dancing down our throats. Rather annoying but there was a lot to be annoyed with other than the dancing at this year’s conferences.
Seb: Yeah, on the topic of “shit that’ll probably sell well, but isn’t of interest to a single person at E3”, why did we need to spend 10 minutes watching people ‘playing’ Wonderbook? I’m sure some kids will be able to convince their parents to buy a PS3, a Move, a PS Eye, a Wonderbook and a copy of Book of Spells, just to be able to read another J.K. Rowling book. But, I’m not one of those kids, and I don’t want to see 10 mins of it instead of proper games.
In fact, Jack Tretton said afterwards that there weren’t any more Vita games shown because they couldn’t fit anything else in…
Cam: See now that pisses me off right there. While I am a huge Harry Potter fan and was somewhat giddy about Book of Spells, I would have much rather had that time used to showcase new and exciting games for the Vita, which is sorely in need of some must have games.
However what really annoys me more was Microsoft. This is a “hardcore” system that I was hoping to see some big new IPs from. Yes I am a PS Fanboy but I am first a gamer. Microsoft started off strong and then went to Kinect (boring!) and then SmartGlass. So I guess I just don’t see what is so great about this. Use your tablet to control Internet Explorer (that’s a joke right?) on your TV. Why not just control it on the tablet that you have in your hand? I saw this as an attempt to take off some of Nintendo’s steam and while it might have some cool applications, it failed.
Seb: Yeah, I hate all of this second screen gimmicky stuff – here’s why – it’s pointless, irritating, expensive and clumsy. I want a nice solid gameplay experience, devoid of unneeded features simply shoved in to tick a box.
Another thing that pissed me off was the “celebrity” appearances. Aisha Tyler and Tobuscus painfully stuttering their way through Ubisoft’s show was awkward, unfunny, and pointless.
Cam: I don’t get that obsession to invite these celebrity’s to a gaming event where they have no clue what they are doing. It’s shades of Kobe Bryant at Sony last year trying to playing NBA with the Move.
What I don’t understand is how E3 has gone from exciting new announcements each year to showcasing games we have already seen and heard about. Yes it’s nice to see these great trailers on the big screen, but for me, E3 should be all about announcing new games on a big stage. I hope that the show can get back to that, which is what I feel most gamers out there truly want.
Seb: Yeah, totally agree. The show is now all about re-revealing known stuff, it’s not exciting at all. I could have skipped watching E3, and I wouldn’t have missed much. E3 used to mean megaton, but now it means meh.
So yeah, I’m thoroughly annoyed with E3. What would you say pissed you off most at E3 this year?
Cam: That is a tough question. I would say that the one thing to really burn me wrong was the lack of real balls by any of the presenters. It felt like everyone decided to play it safe and announcements that should have been made to breathe more life into the event and the gaming Industry just were not made. A lot of sequels and games we already knew about, nothing amazing or jaw dropping.
Seb: Yeah, that’s true, they were all pretty lame. On the subject of presenters, I was really pissed off by how translators never seem to know the script – the guy speaking Japanese is reading off of a teleprompter, so why can’t the translator take a look first?
But really, what angered me most was the falseness of some of the presentations, like the terrible Wii U trailers where fake families go “Omg, wow, this is so pretty, it’s amazing” after seeing a pack of flying geese (this is real). The falsest and stupidist part of the show was Ubisoft’s “And now we’re going to answer questions from the internet”, where the questions, answers, background slides and slick segways were blatantly pre-prepared.
E3 2013, I’m looking at you to turn things around.
