So, obviously I got busy and got behind on E3 blogging. If you've been following me on Twitter you should be up to speed, but before I flee the convention center for my hotel to collapse briefly before getting plastered, I wanted to drop you some quick links!
You saw my roundup/analysis of Microsoft's briefing yesterday -- I did one for Sony, too. Short version: I liked Sony's presentation better. Watching Microsoft's, I had plenty of moments of "that's interesting," or "that looks cool." Watching Sony's, I had tons of moments of "I want that."
The press section did cheer a lot during Sony's briefing, and it made me wonder. You wouldn't see film critics hollering and cheering at Cannes, would you? (Maybe you would; I wouldn't know, I've never been). There's an idea among the games press that we should be reporters; we should be objective. We shouldn't be fanboys.
But when it was announced that Kojima is making a sequel to MGS3 that covers Big Boss establishing Outer Heaven, I squealed. Out loud. Not because I meant to; I couldn't help it. This is precisely the game I have always wanted (well, I wanted it on console, but hey, I'll take it).
One of the main things I was hoping to get out of E3 was a reinvigoration of my enthusiasm for games themselves. Y'know, they've become work to me; I've felt a little bored and jaded, disinterested in playing new titles, primarily focused on the work of being an industry reporter. That I no longer felt like a gamer in recent months has been a big source of concern to me -- I really feared losing touch with the things that my audience longs for, cares about, gets angry about, excited about, emotional about.
So yeah. I cheered during Sony's conference (and probably a little bit during Microsoft's, too. Splinter Cell: Conviction looks rad) -- and I'm glad I felt the urge to. I don't think that being a fan must preclude me from being a qualified writer -- just because something's personal to me doesn't mean I can't be objective alongside it. In fact, I think being a fan is a necessary component of being able to write effectively for an audience of people interested in games.
Other industries can have their poker faces. I'm having fun here.
Anyway, that was yesterday, and today, I got to talk to a couple of Sony execs about some of the more interesting things from their briefings. Worldwide Studios North America head Scott Rohde talked to me about the company's internal developers and why first-party strength is important to the platform. He also talked LBP and Mod Nation as the first two phases of a broader strategy to build a user-generated toybox genre on the PS3.
Hardware marketing boss John Koller talked to me about going digital with the PSP Go and how the dual download-versus-UMD idea works. I asked Koller what most of you brought up via Twitter -- what's with that price point? Check out my coverage to see what he said.
Hideo Kojima said E3 needs big announcements in order to really work, so he dropped no fewer than four new title announcements. Two of them were the Metal Gears you've already heard of, one online coin-op arcade Metal Gear that will start in Japan and then aim overseas (though I'm skeptical Konami can really launch arcades in the U.S. and Europe in any kind of visible way) -- and then he announced he's supporting Spanish studio MercurySteam on the next Castlevania. Where was IGA? No idea.
They also showed the Silent Hill re-up for Wii, and it made me really, really excited about it. It's not a "Wii-make," thank god, and even "remake" isn't quite the right word. It's a combat-less reimagining that looks really clever, and they've clearly put a great deal of effort in prioritizing emotional horror in the way it's designed.
I've done some other things today and yesterday, interviews and stuff I've yet to write up, so this is just some of my E3 stuff so far. Hit up Gamasutra regularly for your wide-ranging news and analysis! I still recommend Kotaku for up-to-the-minute details and showfloor experiences, and I know the Destructoid army is doing some clever stuff, too.
By the way, this how hardcore Kotaku's staff is: Mike Fahey is ill, half his face is paralyzed, and in Konami's conference his wireless card did not work -- so he liveblogged the entire thing using only his iPhone. That, my friends, is a flippin' soldier.
14 comments:
As has been discussed on several podcasts (most recently that I know of RebelFM), this is why people need to start referring to game media as "enthusiast press" and not necessarily "journalists".
You're not unbiased observers, and your audience to some degree does not WANT you to be. You're there to find out more about something you're already excited for and then, if what you see is good, get other people excited for it too. That's a useful, necessary and fun-as-hell function, but it certainly goes beyond simply finding, fleshing out and reporting a sequence of facts.
Film critics do hoot and holler at Cannes, but the difference is that they're watching the movies and not the trailers. They also boo and hiss when the occasion warrants.
Not sure how you (ok I can see how you would like it better. Then again a MGS themed Peggle for the PSN would cause you you to gasp...) but to me it was ok. Now I thought MS was good but not overwhelming. The big difference is that MS seems to understand who the real audience here is, Sony is seeming to understand, while Nintendo doesn't really have a clue. This isn't an annual meeting or a conference call, there will time enough for dealing with industry analysts at other events and other presentations.
I guess that after the semi-flop that was LBP I would think people would hold off on praising Sony's Create stuff. Aside from that? MAG may work or it may not, until the actual servers are up no one will know. GOW3 looked great graphically but was I the only one who thought the AC2 demo earlier was more interesting? I thought people were getting sick of QTEs and from the demo GOW3 wants one every 5 minutes.
Poor Fahey. I hope he gets better.
As for the press showing reactions to announcements and trailers, I see no reason that they should be trying to be like other industries and their journalists. Stuff is different for each industry, and who's to say the gaming industry can't be more cheerful about stuff? Plus, as much as i enjoy the idea of games being art, i'd rather that game journalists be more similar to gamers than something like game critics. Like art critics.
/insert joke about anybody who reviews MGS4 is a movie critic and not a game critic
Was excited for this e3 then it started. Completely underwhelmed and I'm not sure why. New metal gears made me go meh, same with new mario's and metroid.
Sony and Microsoft's new camera toys hold no interest to me either, have enough crap hooked up to my tv and to many different controllers out there already. Change is good but soon enough every franchise will have it own separate controller at this rate.
I've started thinking they should've left e3 dead as I don't see how holding a press day showing off new toys wouldn't work just as well.
"Journalists" in the political realm have become cheerleaders, I don't see why the games industry press should be held to a higher standard than that, as long as they're up front about it.
I feel angry that Kojima still managed to get me excited as a new 70's PSP game featuring Big Boss was like the one MGS thing that could actually actually excite me.
I'm still cautious towards Rising though. Maybe they can pull off that whole scout thing Raiden was into during MGS4, it's not like Tenchu is the reigning champion of its own category.
I am surprised at all the positive impressions I've heard on the Go though. I guess I'll just have to wait until I can get my hands on it, it just looks so uncomfy to me.
~sLs~
I guess I'm pretty lucky then, in that I'm not at E3 to cover games -- I can blog and tweet about whatever I want, but my work involves writing about the industry. So what I get psyched about or not doesn't really matter as long as I've got a material understanding of where things fit in economically.
I suppose I might feel differently about the idea of "enthusiast press" if my work entailed me telling consumers whether things were good or not and whether they should buy them (my strong feeling that E3 is not a good environment to assess this is a story for another time!)
Listening to the Giantbomb podcast right now.
Wow...
Haha, yeah. Sorry, Willoughby :(
@SVGL
And what's "objective" games journalism? Press releases?
I expect game journalists to tell me what to buy. If they can't objectively be subjective in their assessment of a game, then they failed.
Let game journalists be excited. Hell of a lot more personal then the robots in the media. And with less of an agenda.
In regards to objectivity, gaming is an entertainment industry. I think a requirement for anyone to cover any entertainment industry is to have a passion for that entertainment (along with a knowledge and ability to write). If people who covered games weren't fans then why would they cover gaming?
That said, I still think that "objective" writing in this space has its place when it comes to news stories and anything else that doesn't require outright critiquing of a work.
Hi Leigh,
I completely agree with your "I want that" statement. I felt like I saw more games being shown at the Sony conference.
My "I Want That" moment came from reading about Bioware talking about its new Star Wars MMO.
Story! Woo-hoo!
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