When I was younger, it was a dream of mine to go to E3. In the early 2000s it really seemed to be all about the games and the fans. I loved reading about it each year in EGM. As I got older, it started to turn into what The Game Awards have turned into now, just marketing buzz with Hollywood actors trying to be relatable to us gamers. I know E3 has always been about marketing, but back then it seemed to want to capture the hearts of gamers, and as the years went on it just became more and more commercialized with corporate marketing strategies that makes real gamers disinterested in their gimmicks.
Here’s a good clip that kind of underlines the issue I have with E3 in its later years.
View: https://youtu.be/bTAKSBvuT-A
For context, when the Xbox One was first announced, there were a ton of features/requirements that players hated, most notably being required to always be connected to the internet, required to have Kinect plugged into the Xbox at all times, and no backwards compatibility. Around the 1:45 mark, Don talks about the people who complained about the XB1 needing to always be online, he smugly suggests they just stick to their Xbox 360. You can see Geoff’s reaction, as if he was disgusted to hear that come from someone who claims to know what gamers want. It’s pretty nasty corpo schlock, I’m glad that Microsoft at least has been trying to not act this way anymore.
www.pcgamer.com
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram