E3 and the Marketing Monster

And upon us is the current E3. The marketing machine is buzzing, the internet is excited, everybody is watching the keynotes. At the moment I only watched the Bethesda Keynote with all their glory but I am sitting ready for the Microsoft one. Why am I watching these? Because they are lame and funny and crazy and a lot more.

I warn you before that this will behind a rant and a description why I still watch these.

So lets go over what does a good E3 press conference need? Every keynote needs at least some presenter who is trying to hard to be in, to understand all that hippity-hoppety the young kids are into these days. "No, really I play the calls of duty and the halos and that one indie game with the time thingy." But they try so hard, oh so hard to convince us that they actually know what they are talking about. And do not forget the appropriate nerdy t-shirt.

Now ok I don't know how many games they played and in fact i don't care. But forcing some guy to do that is not really nice and it is plain obvious. Look at the Doom reveal on the Bethesda Keynote. How hard he convinced us that Doom is about bad ass killing demons. And weapons and killing demons. Did I mention demons? But that seems so far away from the techical, game-feel essence of the game.

But ok not everybody can know every game and after all this is a marketing thing going on and we should just concentrate on the games. But after a new announcement we get to see a trailer and two people from the development studio got the bad end of the stick (or good perhaps? I don't know how good the parties are) and have to sell us on this. Telling us how awesome Game 1 was and Game 2 will be because they clearly understand the essence of the game. Oh and don't you remember how much fun you had with the last game? Remember that because that is our selling point. But don't worry, they have soooo much more to tell us and they "cannot wait". But don't wait because you are going to get none in the next few month. Because they might have some ideas what this will be or if the features/vertical slice/trailer will have anything to do with the end product. And of course the marketing department forbid us to tell you anything anyway.

Ok after all this marketing we at least have an enjoyable show, right? Well. Not really. Unless you like to hear weird puns and jokes going nowhere? And you know what? I am! So let's see what Microsoft has to offer.

After Peak Balmer

Oh I forgot something. The good old "do you remember that old game you played? You can now play the same game again! With free nostalgia." And of course the technical glitches which always find their way into these conferences. You might think they found capable people to get one press conference without any technical hiccups. And my favorite thing was also back again. The completely real demo, look guys I have a controller in my hands which then is full of either scripted CGI sequences or scripted interaction sequences.

But let us just wait for EA. Because EA has always a fun show.

Electronic Awwww

Well and here is the EA press conference. The most fun one. And I really have to wonder who decides what gets on stages and what the order is. Because they are not dumb. They know people wait for Battlefront so they remind people about when this will come. But on the other hand they spent their precious minutes on mobile building game. And instead of having the interview with a star somewhere at the start so they can change the timings around things if he goes over time. And it is exactly this weird mixture of not understanding anything and completely understanding what the people want to see. It is just baffeling how these things can exists in a 90 minutes conference. How the timer just reminds you that you are only here for Battlefront. Which is completely counter intuitive how these things should be. The viewer should hang at what comes next, always asking themselves if they miss something. But a timer completely invalidates this. I just can't understand this.

And the rest

Well and the rest. I should mention I like the Ubisoft show. I always like it because at least the presenter is not boring. And they know that you should show stuff instead of just telling me how awesome they are. But, of course, they need to do something nobody cares about. But this is how these press events go. Multimillion dollar companies show how they really cannot give us a show that seems professional and interesting without any hiccups.

But I am loving it!