Hey, I'm Hamish Black and this is Writing on Games and I guess we're in LA
for E3 or something. That's weird.
Yeah, weird is the right word for it.
Since blagging a couple of media passes for the show this year, it's been hard to contain
both my excitement and general bewilderment.
E3 has always held a kind of magical quality for me and I've dreamed of going since I
was a kid.
On the other hand, I was also aware that I'd be covering one of the strangest years in
the show's over two-decade long history.
See, E3's importance has increasingly been brought into question over the years.
Publishers have been pulling out of the show due to high booth prices and the fact that
they can control the message by selling directly to people rather than going through some industry/media-focused
event.
It seems that every year
now people are asking the question – will this be the last E3?
E3 has seen this decline coming, and in a bid to maintain their reputation as the number
one gaming convention... thing, they've opened their doors to anyone willing
to pay the $250 price tag, giving publishers a reason to come back to the show.
So the downside, according to a number of industry vets, is that nothing about the way the show is laid out has changed
to accommodate the extra 15000 people coming through the doors.
There were reports on day one that they had to open the show early because the people
queueing in the street was deemed a hazard.
That's kinda wild.
That said, E3 has always been about the experience over all else for me.
The idea of going to the conference in this transition year to end all transition years
excited me far more than the prospect of playing unreleased games.
Me being the masochist that I am, I was super into experiencing that chaos first hand.
Little did I know, however, that what would greet us would be something this bad.
A convention entirely unequipped to deal with the extra bodies being dumped on it, an ESA
entirely ignorant to the real problems they were causing, all culminating in a show that
had me and many others asking the question – how could this possibly be a worthwhile
experience for a paying public?
This conundrum first became apparent the moment we got to the Convention Centre on day one.
Arriving in what we thought was good time led to us being angrily sent to the back of
the queue which stretched down one long block, then folded back on itself several times.
A sea of yellow laminate greeted us – the indicator of a paying public badge holder,
as opposed to the clear holders for media badges.
I couldn't imagine that hour-long wait was the best first impression if you'd just
dropped $250 on a pass.
Don't get me wrong though, once we did get in it was hard not to get caught up in the
grandeur of it all; the monoliths of a culture you've idolised your entire life standing
proudly before you.
At first glance it's a beautifully maximalist experience, the perfect snapshot of
excess - everything is loud and bright and colourful enough to distract from the
fact that you're essentially being advertised at from every angle.
It's exactly how I imagined both E3, and America in general, as a kid.
Then we realised just how unprepared the convention was to deal with a newly formed mass of people
stampeding through it, and the charm wore off fast.
People were having to line up in order to join other lines while not knowing where those
lines led, a number of demos had wait times of up to five hours, people were cutting and
bumping into each other constantly and generally not really knowing what to do.
The public were even queuing up for unbelievable amounts of time just to get into the merch
stores to get... tote bags I guess.
It was a total mess which also led to a number of people raising legitimate safety and security
concerns regarding the event.
And just trust me on this – if you're anxious of crowds, stay the hell away from E3.
Not only did they make getting any work done impossible without retreating to the bunker
of a news room provided for media, as someone with anxiety it took a lot for me not to run
the hell away.
I couldn't exactly blame the public for this, however.
There are only so many demo booths, the convention centre only open for so long, which meant
you had to constantly make truly tough decisions as to what lines were worth waiting in, and
even that didn't guarantee you'd get to see the game before they closed everything
down.
I'm willing to bet that if a member of the public got their hands on four games in a
day, they were LUCKY.
Then there were the cavalcade of signs informing people that the queues were full – imagine
paying $250 to get into the convention and being told you didn't even have the privilege
of waiting in line?!
It was madness.
It all led to a real "look but don't touch" atmosphere, where the scale and splendour
of everything was right there in front of you, but the option paralysis of choosing
which line to spend hours waiting made it all feel eerily distant; like you were there
but you also weren't.
The only reason we got to see as many games as we did in those first couple of days was
because, as media, we'd been able to set up appointments with publishers – something
the public didn't get to do.
We'd avoid the queues and get looked after by PR without the usual time constraints associated
with demos on the show floor.
One particular spot we visited on day 2 had free food and beer, readily available games
in air conditioned trailers, and all after we'd seen a bunch of disappointed public
badges get hurriedly turned away.
It legitimately made me feel bad – we were getting this hugely preferential treatment
precisely because we didn't pay to be there.
And we spent a lot of time there, because it meant we didn't have to squeeze through
the aimless crowds.
Nothing about this setup says "this is a worthwhile purchase for the public."
By day 3, we were honestly kinda over it.
We slept in, I got some writing done, anything felt more productive and less panic-inducing
than navigating that crowd again.
However, as we solemnly prepared to brave the killing fields one last time, we realised
that the show floor's population was noticeably thinner.
Whether that was the public getting a better grasp on how to navigate the show floor or whether they just got tired
and abandoned it altogether doesn't change the fact that what was once an asphyxiating mess
of bodies was now far easier to deal with.
The person managing the line for Mario Odyssey, one of the most popular booths, gleefully
informed us of the 25-minute wait.
It totally turned out to be way more than 25 minutes, but hey, an hour in line was certainly
better than the upwards of three hours seen previously.
People seemed happy and everything felt… calmer.
It seemed something had clicked with Nintendo's staff in particular, realising the popularity
of their booth, finding ways to better demarcate lines and more efficiently herd us as cattle,
as opposed to the comparative free-for-all that characterised previous days.
And it was with this room to breathe that you started to get a little bit of clarity
on things – it made me think, even for a brief second, that despite the mess we'd seen
previously, maybe there was a way to make this work.
Whether the solution is a media only day like with Gamescom or simply better organising
organising lines, it was clear that the problem wasn't the fact the public was there, just that nothing
was done to accommodate them.
I got a chance to talk to some of the public in line that day and honestly, the prevailing
attitude was one of cautious optimism.
It's important to remember that at the end of the day, there's a reason these people
bought those tickets – E3 still holds a sense of prestige for a lot of people.
The idea that they'd be able to get into this once-secret club; to actually be inside
the place where everything is being revealed.
Hell, they got to play the new Mario before most other people
that holds real value to some.
Would I say that their optimism is misplaced?
Probably.
It's hard to tell if it's genuine or merely an attempt to justify an expensive purchase.
Would I say that they deserved better for the price tag?
Absolutely, and the ESA's reticence to accept that their approach led to real problems is
going to sink the show in years to come.
And it's not like the ESA is going to change their approach too drastically here – they
made buck off the public this year, so the public will always be at E3.
If the media abandon the show, so be it; it might lose a little of the prestige that made
people buy a ticket in the first place, but hey, maybe that's just where the show is headed.
Would I go next year? Sure, despite it being difficult at times,
it was as chaotic an experience as I kinda wanted it to be. I also don't have to pay for a ticket.
If it remains a bad fan convention as it was this year, however, then they've lost both
the original purpose of the show AND driven away their one potential lifeline.
That's something you can't exactly bounce back from.
So I hope you enjoyed my second piece on E3.
I may have another, more game-centric video on E3 planned, but otherwise regular programming
will resume very soon.
I have to thank the best dude on the planet/podcast host Nico for filming the footage you saw
in this video and generally making it possible for me to attend the show.
If you want to hear more from the both of us, check out the podcast in the description.
If you want to keep up with future videos, why not hit subscribe?
If you really feel like going the extra mile, however, you can always support my Patreon
like these beautiful people currently on screen.
Your support absolutely makes this show possible and I cannot thank you enough for it.
In particular I'd like to thank Julien McRoeth, Louis Noise, Brandon Robinson, Iago Foxo Bouza,
Justins Holderness, James Doering, Biggy Smith, Mark B. Writing, Peter, Spike Jones, Artjom
Vitsjuk, Christian Konemann, Nicolas Ross and Charlie Yang.
And with that, I'm Hamish Black and this has been Writing on Games.
Thank you very much for watching and I'll see you next time.
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