The Essential E3
You’re reading Reaction Time, a weekly column that claims to examine recent events, games and trends in the industry, but is really just looking for an excuse to use the word “zeitgeist.” It debuts on Fridays in Engadget’s digital magazine, Distro.
It’s easy to separate fresh freelancers from deeply ingrained industry curmudgeons on the E3 show floor. The former group barges into the Los Angeles Convention Center with a spring in their step, a sparkle in their eye and the reverent willingness to strip down and be consumed in wonderment, as the show caresses and dazzles them with gaming’s finest wares. Cynicism and numbness haven’t had an opportunity to creep in yet.
Meanwhile, the other guys are having a cigarette and talking trash on the other end of the spectrum. They’re more likely to describe the Electronic Entertainment Expo as a disorienting nebula of noise that flattens the senses and squeezes the humanity out of you from bottom to top, like it’s the last bit of toothpaste in the tube. To them, E3 is an exhausting act of catching bullets in a burning ammunition depot, with breaking news and rapid-fire developments flying in from all directions.
What makes E3 so fascinating to some – and so irritating to others – is that it doesn’t have a filter. It’s not particularly aimed at just press, consumers or retailers anymore, so it just spills over everyone and blasts out light and sound in 360 degrees. Joystiq sends a massive team of writers to cover the event every year because there’s so much of it, and so much of it is in need of filtration and packaging. From the perspective of readers and podcast listeners, the press should function as both translator and bulletproof vest.Continue reading The Essential E3The Essential E3 originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 01 Jun 2012 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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