First, let me apologize. I'm really behind on my blog posts. I've been on several back-to-back trips, with no break in between them. I'm trying to catch-up..
A couple of weeks ago, I was in Los Angeles, California. I was there to attend a big conference for my industry. It's called E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) and it's the largest trade show dedicated to videogames, in the U.S.
50,000 people descend on LA to see all of the games that will be released over the next year. When I arrived in LA, I was greeted with this:
The famous LA traffic! This is definitely one of the things I didn't miss from my time living in Southern California a few years ago.
Before the show even started, several big companies were holding press conferences, trying to grab some of the headlines before things really got started. The first event that I was invited to was for Electronic Arts (EA). There were over two thousand people attending at the Shrine Auditorium. Outside the theater, there were a collection of food trailers, to keep the attendees entertained.
Inside the auditorium, the show began. It was broadcast on the Spike TV channel, and it was quite the production. The stage was immense:
One of the big games that they showcased during the event was BattleField 4. This is a really popular game that millions of people play online. For this version, they have made it playable by 64 simultaneous players. This is an amazing technical feat to coordinate the movement and graphics of 64 players on a single level of the game. At one point during the event, they brought the lights up on the back of the stage and revealed 64 players, all working on PCs that were powered by chips from my company:
I then moved across town and attended the press conference for Ubisoft, another large game publisher. They make games like Assassin's Creed and Just Dance:
The next day was the real start of the show. E3 is held in the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC). Even when approaching this massive complex, you'll know that E3 has arrived:
Inside the lobby, there was a twenty-foot mech robot, to advertise a new game called TitanFall - in which you jump inside giant robots to fight:
Even some old favorites were spotted in the lobby:
Inside, I found the Lego booth - they have been pushing more and more into video games. They were launching games based on Marvel superheroes and their animated series called Chima:
Next to the Lego games was a unique title from Warner Brothers Interactive. This is called Scribblenauts - a game that started on the handheld Nintendo systems, where you have to write words on the screen for objects to appear. It's fun and good for kids. They introduced Scribblenauts Unmasked to include DC superheroes:
Then, I made my way over to the Disney booth. As usual, they had something neat to show. Their big push, was for a game called Disney Infinity. For any parents that are familiar with Skylanders, this is a complete copy of that game. Basically, you play in a work with Disney characters from across their movie and TV shows. You actually buy toy figures that connect to the game system, and then these characters will appear in the game. Genius - and a parent's worst nightmare when kids keep asking for new characters. It's a brilliant move for Disney with all the collectible figures:
This display was about 8 feet tall, in the center of their booth. The detail was amazing. I have no idea how much this castle must have cost:
Next, I made my way next door to the EA booth. They're known for their sports games, as well as the BF4 game mentioned earlier:
Here are 64 players in the EA booth, all on AMD-powered machines:
This is the set-up for the "commander" of the game...somebody who is watching the battle and can call out orders. Amazing set-up, no?
Our booth looked fantastic this year - I was really pleased with it. Here are a few pictures from the AMD location:
That's a 5x1 - five screens for a single game...an incredible way to play
We gave away some really good computer processors for dedicated fans of our company:
At these shows, some of the companies give away shirts or posters or other trinkets. We passed out superhero capes. They were quite popular
That's it for part 1. Come back for part 2, to see the brand new Xbox and PlayStation videogame systems ; )
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