I have just read an interesting article on Salon at http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/05/22/e3_2001/index.html.

It's a good article but it also represents the computer industry as a whole. Even your standard computer exhibition/show has booth babes.

Still would it be otherwise ? When you see some of the people who attend E3 (I have seen many photos with huge bearded men and skinny translucent underweight guys who probably haven't seen the sunny side of a woman in five years) I guess the booth babe is the perfect attraction.

Some of the "professional" gaming press are also to blame. How many times have I read journalists eagerly discussing their freebies and drinking junkets as the sole reason for attending E3. It is a wonder anyone finds any real information at E3.

I will never forget one of the computer exhibitions I had to manage for my company where we had run out of press kits (which included a free organiser) and a journalist demanded she get her free kit or else she would never review another one of our products. I have no respect for some of these idiots.

"How many times have I read journalists eagerly discussing their freebies and drinking junkets as the sole reason for attending E3. It is a wonder anyone finds any real information at E3."

The problem isn't the beer and freebies. The problem with E3 is the scarcity of time. To really come up with a meaningful experience with a game you'd have to spend some time playing it, and there just isn't time for that.

So E3 consists of collecting press kits, seeing demos, and asking a few questions about the games being demo'd. The result is that E3 coverage tends to be a regurgitation of developer spiels and press releases.

"Here's the game I saw. It will have these features. The developer said this and this about it. It looks cool."

But what do you think of this game?

"Er, I dunno. I didn't really play it."

That, unfortunately, is the typical E3 experience. It's a tradeshow more than a press event. It's great for buyers because they get to come to one place and spend half a week seeing all the games and make their holiday buying decisions.

Really, the focus this industry has on previews is unhealthy anyway. The focus should be on the games after they're released or on hands-on previews of nearly gold builds. Previewing a game 18 months before it's released is crazy. But it seems to be what gamers want.

I never understood the preview-mania thing, though I have a theory. It did me no good at all to see shots of AOE2 in 1998, then not be able to buy it until late 2000. It was the same woth Age of Wonders, and dozens of others.

I don't know that gamers want previews. I think they just want news. Compared to other entertainment industries of similar size, gaming hardly generates any juicy news. Look at movie biz vs. games biz. Jennifer Anniston vs. Sid Meier?

It's a unique challenge that the gaming companies have. They have product that can generate millions in revenue, but very few real outlets to get the word to the public. So what do they do? Push it the very second they have something that looks like a screen shot, hoping to generate enough buzz to ensure success. Don't forget, most of the people what read the stuff gaming writers type out are "core" gamers, not the casual gamers that generate the really huge blockbusters. Casual folks seem like they would be a lot harder to get the message to. Some of you guys should try to become gaming consultants for magazines like Maxim or People if you want to make extra money and reach the masses. Magazines almost all have movie review sections. Why not game review sections? It seems like a few are starting to catch on, but they all still need work.

Besides, how much REAL gaming news really happens over the course of a week, or even a month, worth reporting?

"I don't know that gamers want previews. I think they just want news."

They do want news, but they appear to also want previews. From what I understand, previews are consistently the most popular content for both websites and magazines. I think it was Steve Bauman who once said that he could post an in-depth industry investigative piece that took a ton of work to research and write, or he could post a couple Quake3 screenshots (back before Quake3 was released) and the screenshots would get ten times the traffic that the article did.

"Compared to other entertainment industries of similar size, gaming hardly generates any juicy news. Look at movie biz vs. games biz. Jennifer Anniston vs. Sid Meier?"

First of all, I think the Salon article pretty clearly showed that gaming as an industry is NOT as big as the film industry.

Secondly, movies generate news about personalities because, by their very nature, movies are about personalities. The gaming industry is about games. People who idolize film stars do so for reasons that don't exist in the game industry. Some people want to read the latest gossip about Jennifer Aniston (I don't), but very few people want to read the racy details of Sid Meier's life. (Probably because there aren't any.)

Gamers tend to be early adopters, and thus want to know IN ADVANCE what's going to be released. Just read any messageboard on ZDnet after someone posts and article comparing some upcoming technology to an existing standard. While some of these people are professionals who need to know what is on the horizon so that they can make business decisions, a lot of them are simply interested in "the next thing." Gaming is the same way, especially since these two audiences overlap so much.

It would be kind of artificial for me to do it now, but I'm actually looking forward to when I start my hospital rotations and don't have time to play games or read gaming sites. After nine months of not hearing the latest gaming news (or playing any games), walking into a game store might approach the feeling I had ten or fifteen years ago, when everything seemed so new (since I didn't follow the game press). That'll be a change.

Hey Sean, I already posted about this in the "Boobs and Rubes" thread.

FIRST POST!!!!!11!!1

What I personally get most out of E3 is some face time with developers. I get to meet and chat with a few dozen people who make games in three packed days and give them my $.02 about what they're working on, what other people are working on, and what's going on in the industry. More importantly, I get their $.02 about the same thing.

Yeah, the face time is nice, and that goes for meeting other writers, too. I suspect E3 is more important for the magazines, too, as it gives them a glimpse of games and helps them plan coverage down the line. Magazines have to be more discerning than websites due to space limitations.

I love E3. I just don't think it's the greatest vehicle for the kind of game coverage I'd like to read.

Sorry Wumpus - I didn't see your post before reading the SALON article.

And yes I agree with you.

I would say that you guys tend to be right about most previews not being very effective. At the same time, if there's a game that I'm waiting for, previews 18 months ahead of time seem to make it easier to wait, because I have something to "whet my appetite." And I've always found previews that were written based on betas 2-3 months before the game is gold to be pretty helpful.

Yeah, I like hands-on previews. Those are helpful, especially if the writer is allowed to be critical of game elements to some extent.

I don't really like having my appetite whetted 18 months in advance. That's too long. I'd rather that the game companies wouldn't even announce the game until it was within 6-9 months of shipping.

Yeah, that would probably be better in a lot of ways. I think getting little tidbits along the way make the wait easier if I know a game is coming, but perhaps if I didn't know at all until shortly before the game is ready, it would be better.

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Quote:

It would be kind of artificial for me to do it now, but I'm actually looking forward to when I start my hospital rotations and don't have time to play games or read gaming sites.

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E3 has always been a fascinating study along a lot of axes. Most of us are running around trying to get all of our meetings stuffed into the small amount of time allotted for the show, making the call on what appointments to turn down in order to have a little free time to roam and try to find some hidden jewels. And I hate turning down appointments, because for me the valuable part of E3 is being able to sit with a designer or producer and talk about their game design philosophy, where they thing the PC gaming world is going, what they think about other upcoming games, etc. And then you see people who stand in line for 30 minutes to have their picture taken with a booth babe, or stand in line for an hour to get an autograph of a professional wrestler.

I wish I had been able to spend more time with the other writers than the one afternoon and evening. I get a lot out of bouncing thoughts on the games back and forth between the pros like Bruce, Stefan, Tom, Mark, and Gordon.

Jeff

I'm a game buying junkie, but I have stopped paying attention to most previews. The reality is that they are so far out, and they cover a model of what will, in all likelihood, not be a good representation of the actual game, that one ends up frustrated rather than hot and bothered to buy a game. Halo is a terrific example of a preview I saw two summers ago that I just about wet my drawers over, but now I have absolutely no interest in (somewhat dated graphics, dated gameplay, fps-ugh!).

Hands-on previews are a different story: I just about dreamed of B&W every night for a month before release because the previews were of an actual THING that I was going to be able to OWN (or covet as my gf says)in the near future. That is a good feeling, even if the end result was overall disappointment with the game (beautiful but in the long run not interesting enough).

But what Mark said about focus on the game after the release is really what is lacking. My example here is Kohan. In most respects it seems like a pretty boring title: older graphics, rts in aoe style, same old fantasy bs. But I am so glad I stumbled onto an interesting enough review to look at their mb. The talk seemed really interesting, and I bought it and gave it a whirl. Wow! What a challenge, I get beat constantly, but it is a ton of fun. I really want to get better at this game. Yada-yada-yada... Why doesn't PC gamer or the others stand up and say, "Hey! Here is a great game. Here are the different things that make it great, here is a list of the differant clans, here are the best players, this is why they are good, etc., etc." Don't give me another walk-through. Ugh! I didn't buy the game to have someone else play it for me! The comp games mags are missing out in not hyping the communities that form around the magazines. I really think games, and the industry, could benefit if the press/media involved the gamers more. After all, these aren't movies, and there are no traditional "actors". The gamers are the stars. I think NWN will really drive this point home because, hopefully, at that point the game designers will really be pushed into the backgrou nd (which in the long run is a really good thing), as the DM's build the world/adventure/excitement/challenge.

Thanks,
Rob

We as a company agree with a lot of what you're saying, Rob. We actually made a whole new section called Afterlife in the mag when we redesigned it, and the entire purpose of it is to highlight ways to get more out of your games after release. That means user-made mods and add-ons, level editing, how-tos from developers, and even tips and cheats (though we're hoping to do something maybe slightly less hackneyed in those regards).

That's not meant to be a plug for the mag. I just mean to say that enough people felt like you do, and wrote in about it, to make us change the magazine. They felt that games needed more coverage after release, not just previews before it and a review.

http://www.oldmanmurray.com/realnews.shtml

Erik Wolpaw to James Wagner Au...
Check and mate.

Compare and contrast the article referenced at the top of this thread with the front page of Salon today.

But be warned, the front page of Salon is not "workplace safe"...

--Dave

Heh. Beautiful. Thanks Dave.

I read that Salon got another round of funding, $2.5 million, but I suspect that won't last them very long. I'll be surprised if they're around by the end of the year without some benefactor carrying them.

I enjoyed the article. Pictures were nice also. FYI...If you checked out the photos, MM has a fairly fresh scar from surgery very visible in the photos.

I hope Salon.com continues but, if it has the luck of the rest of the internet, Mark is probably right.

-DavidCPA

Internet advertising isn't going to pick up this year from everything I've read. The fourth quarter will have some seasonal increases, I'm sure, but then the first quarter of 2002 will probably be a disaster if it's like first quarters in previous years.

If they rely on advertising and aren't making a profit now, they won't be making a profit from advertising for quite some time -- some forecasters are now pushing the advertising decline well into 2003 before it bounces back. Salon is going to need an alternative revenue plan or figure out how to cut costs.