Dear Friends:
Each year, the majority of the gaming industry gathers at a giant show called "E3". The short name stands for Electronic Entertainment Expo:
I've written about other conferences, but this is the king of spectacle. Essentially, this is a celebration of the game industry. All of the gaming press comes to look at the games that will be released over the next year. Game publishers spend millions of dollars on vast booths and preparing audio/visual displays that overwhelm the senses. The idea is to excite the press and the retail buyers, so that sales of these games can be jump-started, ahead of their release.
The show takes place in Los Angeles, truly the entertainment capitol. I lived in LA for a few years, so I'm familiar with it. One of the things that I don't miss, is the traffic. Here's a snapshot of the traffic situation on the morning I arrived. Almost everything is red - meaning horrible traffic:
I used the freeway, or as I know it - the slow-moving parking lot....
My view for over an hour
I arrived at the show, and after 20 years of attending this particular event, it felt very familiar to me:
At the main entrance, I found this display. It's for a game that my youngest son and I love to play - Disney Infinity:
Based on that display, I decided to hear for the Disney booth as my first stop. They usually do a great job with their booth every year:
At the entrance to the booth, there was a display of all the toy figures that are used in the game. Each figure, when placed on a special platform, allows you to play that character in the game. We all know that Disney has a LOT of characters:
The newest edition of this game now includes characters from Star Wars. We can't wait to play this version, later in the fall when it's released. Everywhere you looked in the Disney booth, they were showcasing these new figures:
Here's a little footage of the game, where you get to fight in the Battle of Hoth, from Empire Strikes Back:
In another part of the booth, they took hundreds of "power discs" that are used in the game, and created a curtain. It was amazing...
Each year, Disney does a really nice job of offering something unique to the folks that visit. This year, they had a giant green-screen set-up, so that I could fight Darth Vader. Here, you can see me applying a Force-choke hold on Vader, for good measure:
Elsewhere on the E3 show floor, there were all kind of fantastical displays. These are huge - this particular setting was about 15 ft high, showcasing characters from an upcoming game:
In the Warner Brothers booth, they were showing some upcoming Lego-based games. They set up a series of Lego "scenes" in their booth:
This guy is about 6 ft tall!
You never know what you'll run into, on the show floor. Here, characters from a game are brought to life by actors:
Another popular game with kids is called Skylanders. The publisher - Activision - was showing the upcoming version. It worlds much like Disney Infinity, as small toy figures are used to bring characters into the game. This year, they introduce vehicles for the characters to use:
Nintendo's booth was a little smaller than years past. They weren't introducing as many games as before:
Next door, was the Sony Playstation booth. It was massive, as usual. Sony had a variety of games to showcase:
One interesting game was called "Drawn to Death". Essentially, it's a shooting game, but the art style looks like someone was sketching the characters. I found it visually interesting:
Like two giants battling each other, the Xbox and Playstation booths stand face-to-face. As each booth is around 15-20,000 square feet, it's quite a battle:
Inside the Microsoft Xbox booth, they were showing the latest driving title, Forza 6. They had a gorgeous Ford GT experimental design car in the booth:
Also inside the Xbox booth, was a new game that caught my eye - Cuphead. The game is like a typical "platform" game - much like Mario, Sonic and the like. However, the art style looks just like a Max Fleischer cartoon from the 1930s. I'm really excited to see if this one is any fun, because I love the risk that the game developers have taken here.
In another area of the expo was another giant booth, this one belongs to Square-Enix, a Japan-based game publisher. They have a ton of games to showcase, including Tomb Raider:
It seems that you can't have a gathering of geeks without somehow involving the Ghostbuster car, from the film.
Call of Duty is a well-known game in the industry - a franchise that generates about $1B in revenue. The line to be able to play the latest version was incredibly long. I think some of these guys waiting over an hour to play...you can't even see the back of the line in this picture:
Another game that I'm really excited about, is called Star Wars Battlefront. I know, lots of Star Wars here at the show. This is a very realistic game, that allows up to 64 people on each side of a battle to fight each other online. It's an incredible-looking game. At my previous company, my team helped them to make the graphics look as good as they can. If you're really interested in how it looks, simply search for this game's name, because it's stunning. Here's the Electronic Arts booth with just a few of the players facing-off against each other:
The EA booth, showing a clip from the Star Wars Battlefront game
In a final nod to the E3 of 2015, I leave you with an image of me riding a speeder bike from the Star Wars film. It warms my nerd heart:
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