Hello from E-3!

First, some caveats, for those of my colleagues who may be reading this but are not familiar with the blog phenomenon: This is a blog. A personal web log, an online journal, some meaningless ramblings. I am not official press, I have no formal journalistic training. This is not an article, nor is it even a weak attempt at a comprehensive review of E-3. This is just my stream of thought, and somewhat of a timesaver since every time I *do* log on, I'm getting inundated with IMs from a variety of different people who all have the same question: "How's E-3???" (grin) So, since I *do* want to answer everyone's question, but I just don't have time to talk to everyone individually, here's the Elonka's-eye-view, a quick summary of the sights and sounds and people that have streamed through my universe in the last couple days. If I don't cover a specific game that you're interested in, well, sorry, go read somebody else's blog. :) As it is, I'm worried that I'm going to write something that is going to irritate, marginalize, belittle or offend *somebody*, so I'm probably going to regret writing this anyway, but here goes . . .

First, an explanation of what E-3 is: Electronic Entertainment Expo, one of the "mecca" gatherings of the computer game industry, with tens of thousands of attendees, hundreds of different booths, and literally thousands of different things to see. It takes over multiple buildings of the main convention center in downtown Los Angeles, and can be envisioned as a loud, crowded, colorful, flashing lights and explosions and 20-story high ad banners and costumes and lasers and oh yeah, tons and tons of games, kind of event.

As for why I go to E-3. well, everyone has different reasons, but in my own case, in no particular order, I come to (a) get data about what else is going on in the gaming industry, preferably real numeric data ranging from user numbers to statistical demographics; (b) to see what the "hot new games" are, firsthand; (c) to see and be seen -- to network with my peers, to meet and encourage newcomers in the industry, and to get faces to put to the names that stream across my desktop throughout the year; and (d) to take a long deep sniff on the show floor, and grab a double nostrilful of the hype, so that I can judge for myself what's real, and what's being spun faster than a neutron star.

Next, some namedropping. I know many people in the industry, with of course many more that I don't know, but, so far, this is a partial list of those I've run across this year. The peers that I know well enough to hug, share a friendly handshake with, or wave at across the room while the turbulence of the convention pulls us in opposite directions. Some of these names are famous, some not (but should be), and some are just very cool individuals: Gordon Walton, Jessica Mulligan, Raph Koster, Rich Vogel, Jeff Valadares, John Welch, Greg Mills, Mark Jacobs, Jake Song, Richard Garriott, ... [ Read More (0.8k in body) ]