This week is the Electronic Entertainment Expo down in Los Angeles, a trade show for the videogame industry. Every year it’s the same thing: we work like crazy for months leading up to the show date, trying desperately to get a game demo ready for the show. After that, there’s an explosive decompression as we go from working 12-or-more hour days back to having not much to do to fill up 8 hours worth of time.
It all really sucks.
First, because it’s a completely artificial deadline that is driven solely by marketing.
Second, because the crunch to get read for E3 is independent of the overall life cycle of the game — you go through two peaks of horrible crunch time (pre-E3 and pre-Christmas) instead of having a steady, manageable rate of development throughout the year.
And third, because it’s a loud, flashy marketing show, the emphasis is always on flash instead of substance. So all your shallow, glittering particle effects and button-mashing gameplay elements get all the attention first, while the overall core game design gets put off until the end.
I haven’t been to the show in the past three years, partly because it’s inconvenient (companies never pay for employees to go to the show unless they’re working at it, and EA makes employees take personal time off to see it). But mostly because it’s depressing to see the state of the videogames industry. Lots of stupid, flashy stuff with no substance.
I’d wanted to go this year, just for the novelty of it, but couldn’t book a hotel room. It’s just as well; it sounds like I need at least another year to get back in the mood to see another loud, flashy trade show.