The Electronic Entertainment Expo (otherwise known as E3) is a strange and fantastical beast of a convention. Large companies forgo their everyday suits and shareholder meetings to install fully-fledged stylised buildings within Los Angeles convention centre’s great halls, complete with multiple floors, ventilation, windows, backrooms and theatres.
These strange architectures are then rammed with PR trying to sell games they understand little of, developers nervous and agitated at the prospect of doing hundreds of almost identical interviews and ‘booth babes’ clueless as to what’s going on at all. And thus a literal gaming city is erected for the sole purpose of hype; most of it we see, some of it, such as the all together more business-like buyer meetings and VIP rooms, we don’t.
This year’s E3 closed its doors to 46800 attendees, with what I imagine were very varied opinions, even more so than most previous years like E3 2010. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, the console companies, are usually the hot topics at E3, yet despite the Wii U’s reveal and an explosion of details concerning the PS Vita, the third party developers seem to have been the show’s natural focus, whether the big three liked it or not. Whether this speaks to the quality of the games or the hardware developers’ shortcomings is for you to decide.
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