E3: What Is It and What's Going On?

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July 14, 4:16 PM

by David Thomas, Video Game Examiner

 

 

The tuned down E3 logo

The two most important characters in videogame hype don’t happen to include Mario, Master Chef of Solid Snake. Instead, they consist of “E” and “3”, as in the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo.

For the past 15 years, E3 has anchored the calendar for videogame enthusiasm. Because while individual companies promote various products during the year, E3 remains the one big event for jostling for prominence and big box pre-orders with a show so extreme in marketing and promotion excess that even Caligula would have approved. Over the years it has served up midgets and daredevils, girls wearing almost nothing a pirate’s booty of give-aways and lots and lots of alcohol.

That was then.  Welcome to the new E3.

Scaled down to a tame press and game buyer event, E3 returns to LA this year to try and balance a more sober form of buzz generation while maintaining some of the old E3 fire and rock star excess.

For the entire week I’ll be at the show, sifting through the volume of announcements, promises, boasts and demonstrations to find the most interesting and promising games and gadgets.

If, on the other hand, you want to drink from the fire hose of information that blasts out every minute of the show, here’s a quick set of links from some of my favorite sites covering the newly restrained bacchanal that is E3.

www.kotaku.com

www.joystiq.com/

www.switched.com/

E3 Insider

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