damn I miss E3 (no.13)
turns out shit really can get worse than before
It’s Rent’s Due time, motherfuckers! Welcome back to another hot piece to peruse during the scorching Summer heat. And not only is it hot as metaphorical balls rn, there’s also a hysterical amount of flooding in my area (as is Florida tradition), which may have played a part in me wanting to come back and talk all of my shit about what’s annoying me. Anywho y’know the deal, now let’s talk about Video Gamez.
You never know how good you had something until it’s gone, which is a wild thing to say about the fucking ESA.
The summer season has always been a light at the end of the tunnel to me for various reasons. Whether it was some big title I preordered at GameStop or a new blockbuster playing at my mall, there was always something for me to look forward to in the two months where I didn’t have to think about school or other life shit.
I’d be lying, however, if any of that held a candle to evoking the feeling of summer than watching E3 livestreams.
Nostalgia aside (and there’s a lot of it rn), there was something different about having all the big guns in the industry all at the same place. To any game lover, the first two weeks in June guaranteed that something crazy was going to be revealed.
It brought people together to speculate and seethe over what they’d think would be shown, leading to the some of my favorite memories like screaming in my car at the Smash Bros. Ultimate roster, or laughing at the Best Friends stream when they Xbox revealed the fucking Gears of War FUNKO! game.
For better and for worse, the E3 season guaranteed that we’d be in for something consistent, which I can’t really say today with its spiritual successor in Geoff Keighley’s Summer Games Fest.
Hang on now.
Now don’t get me wrong: I’m fully well aware that the industry is in a rough dry season, with tons of layoffs going on and tons of studios struggling to meet sales expectations in a costly and Fortnite-dominant ecosystem. It seems like more than ever we’re heading towards another crash as every role in places like Microsoft, Sony, and Square-Enix has been going through some shit.
It’s a reality that shouldn’t be ignored (or at the very least discarded with incentivized applause), but with a marketing event like E3 or SGF, it’s something that can be briefly forgotten as we see the new hotness coming to the market; something to make us excited for a bright future of the industry.
E3 used to be the opportunity to do both, with live crowds and a the pre-COVID social stigma that studios needed to be where everyone else is at.
But that’s not Summer Games Fest, and it probably never will be Summer Games Fest.
Getting away with (sh)it.
I didn’t expect much with this year’s opening direct, which is normally fine unless you have someone like Geoff hyping it *down* before the damn thing even started.
Given his track record, he’s normally pretty honest about things pertaining to his own events, so I took him for his word, which is still disappointing and inconsiderate if I were a developer showing off my game at your show. I definitely didn’t give a fuck about that Batman Arkham VR game that got revealed, but if I were somebody who worked on that I’d be pretty pissed off to see a guy like him telling his audience to not be too excited.
That was the first strike, which would’ve been slightly okay if they didn’t follow that up with at least 24 more strikes. And what were those 24 attributed to? Certainly not the ruthless barrage of Live-Shows-upon-Directs-upon-Voices-in-Gaming-streams that either had a couple cool things to show or the same “World Premiere” trailer that already played on another stream 15 minutes earlier.
Look at this fucking schedule! I’m not even joking! How is anyone supposed to keep up with panels that are happening simultaneously with each other. I get that indie developers are using it as a chance to show off what they have, but at least do it in one big event instead of 50 mini-ones.
E3 was easy to follow because you’d likely have Nintendo, Xbox, Sony, some of your third-parties and a PC Gaming show, with maybe another indie thing like a Devolver Direct thrown in there. And they were all dispersed properly throughout the week, and informed us about them way ahead of time! It had some shit called ORGANIZATION, which would’ve made these past two weeks anything but remotely tedious.
Despite the warm reception the public seems to be giving it, that dullness never felt more apparent than with Xbox’s latest showcase. While there were some games I’m excited about (can’t wait to play the new DOOM and Indiana Jones when they eventually come to PS5), the lack of commitment to release dates and dodging of elephants gave me the same feeling of numbness I’ve been having with them lately.
“Wow Black Ops 6 looks cool (Saddam Hussein!), but wdym it’s 300 gigs and I can’t play it offline?”
“Avowed looks interesting. When does it come out? TBA 2024? Dawg we’re in the middle of June!”
These are the same people who spent billions of dollars to acquire Blizzard and Bethesda, only to gut off a chunk of their internal studios even after succeeding with hits like Hi-Fi Rush. For these people to be given a platform where they say they’re all about the future of the games industry while actively harming it is fucking insane.
I would have more respect for them if they just admitted they bought too much, if they were honest about Game Pass hitting a plateau that won’t be satiated until they shift to multi-platform. Sony already won the console wars (whatever that means for this generation), so its best to disperse the goods while there’s still people buying them from you. But nah it’s gotta be all about mah precious “Xbox Experience”, the same experience of getting a shitty Halo sequel and fumbling on landing another big hit for the industry.
(I didn’t want all of this to be a rant on Xbox, but since they were the only other big show to care about, I figured I’d lash out on them a little bit.)
What I’m trying to say is this: for all the faults that E3 had in the past, it at least had a focus on what they were going to show. It was simple and had the support of nearly every giant in gaming, and for me made for a special time in my life that had *something* for me to talk about for the weeks and months to come.
When you don’t have everyone on your side, prolong it so far to the point where it gets boring, and squash any hopes of seeing something incredible, why would anyone even bother at that point?
I’d be better off playing more Fortnite.