Tell GR: Is E3 Still Worth It?

Usher! OMG Usher!

There will be a few very rare incidents where a bombshell is dropped at E3, but for the vast majority of time there will never be a thrilling E3 again. Why? Because any slip of the tongue or any kind of information that seeps out is instantly picked up and circulated. Not only are you damn journalists picking at the seams, people are now more connected than they've ever been, and the gaming community is much bigger and interconnected. This E3 is going to be a normal E3 from now on.

How else are they going to get people hyped and excited enough to buy Generic Shooter #3290 if not with a hilariously overindulgent and excessive display? Look, Shinyyyyyyy!

E3 is still worth it. They just need to get their acts together and realize what people do and don't want to see. People do want to see new, original games. People do want to see games they know about. People don't want annoying commentators. People don't want tech made for children. People don't want Flo Rida.

E3 2012 wasn't worth it, but future ones will be. Hopefully all the publishers will learn from this year's mistakes and get back to true form next year.

Hmm, hard to say. Maybe you and alienware should fly me there next time so I can deliver an informed opinion.

E3 is going to be irrelevant very soon. Nearly everything is so conveniently "leaked" months in advance that you already know what the developers are going to show.

In a word, no.

I'm Han Solo - Kinect Star Wars

I refuse to believe that video is not a hoax.

For me it isn't, because I only get to see some conferences and read the news, and there wasn't anything that surprised me. There wasn't even a release date for the WiiU! If we didn't have major leaks or reveals about games/hardware/whatever before and after E3, then the expo would be nice and the way it used to be. Right now, it wouldn't surprise me if Sony/Microsoft announced their new consoles before the next one arrives.

Is it just me or was Nintendo's Nonspecific Action Figure actually the most exciting thing to come out of E3 this year?

Meh. It could be, but there is no simple fix to the annoying, mostly-uninformative mess we had this year. On the one hand, the developers seem mostly interested in combining a circus sideshow with crude "we're so great!" bragging, rather than actually wowing us with upcoming releases. And on the other hand, the press treats this like a goddamned horse race, blathering about who "wins" and "loses" instead of actually informing us about the games and hardware.

Oh. Well, thank you. Rereading my comment, it came out a lot more bitter than I intended, but I just can't stop feeling annoyed at the whole farce.

'... delicious chocolate deserts..." I think I many now hate you. ;-)

I now hate everyone who ate these things.

E3 has all the TV/Internet video publicity, which leads to needless things like Usher. I was hopeful when they made it more about the press and developers and not the booth babes a few years back. Maybe GDC fills that spot now?

It's worth it for me to hear about the hands on previews you guys do. It's not worth watching the press conferences because they are aimed more at the casual audience, which is how you end up with an usher concert.

I think the only way E3 will be worth it is if developers stopped pimping out their games in advance. You are bound to get more people to watch the event or at least get excited for it if developers simply kept everything under wraps.

While I only watched online, I appreciate E3 for the stage demos of games like Assassin's Creed III and Far Cry 3. Press conferences need an overhaul. All conferences should be more like Sony (and possibly Nintendo, but I didn't see theirs) where the only speakers are people associated with the company. Instead, far too often companies like Ubisoft take some crappy personality like Mr. Caffeine and that YouTube guy (I didn't mind Aisha Tyler, although some of her jokes were cringe-worthy) and everyone with a brain has to grit their teeth in order to see the next game.

Finally, and this has more to do with TV production than the conferences themselves, I wish they would stop cutting to the guy holding the controller during the demo. It detracts from the game, and all it does is make me wonder, "Do I look that stupid and awkward when I'm playing video games." There, big, long post complete.