Top 5 Themes from E3 2018

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5. E3 is Now About Close to Release Games:

E3 is no longer the event to learn about a slew of far-off games because the event itself is transforming to accommodate for whom is actually at the show. Since more and more people attending the show are paying consumers or are on YouTube or Twitch, the show floor can’t be littered with games that don’t show well. It’s also easier to spread the word of a game not looking or playing well and since the show isn’t for industry people who

understand why a game isn’t where it’s going to end up, these game demos have all but disappeared. Now, there seem to be a few kiosks for upcoming games, but there are also kiosks for Mario Tennis which is out a week past E3 and a ton of stations with Fortnite setup, a game someone could literally stay home and play. Nintendo and Ubisoft epitomized this concept this year of showing only games that are already out (and have new updates), coming within 6 months, or updating games that have already been announced.

4. EA Needs to Get Out of Saturday:

Electronic Arts needs to completely re-evaluate their presence at E3, namely with the showcase they have been presenting on Saturday. The overall idea is probably fine, they simply want to dominate an entire days worth of news and write-ups and YouTube videos during a time that fans are paying extra attention to what is going on. Unfortunately, the problem for EA is that their Saturday conference has been dull, messy and clueless. This has mostly just led to people making jokes online, confusingly digesting what they saw, while trying to pick away at whatever substantial factoids can be mined from the robotic bore-fest that was presented to the world. This conference ties into the separate event they hold outside of E3, right before actual E3 begins, which may be helpful on the wallet, but is certainly doing no favors for a

company already under severe public scrutiny. EA desperately needs to learn from how Bethesda has a friendly relationship with its fans and how they present themselves during E3 or how Microsoft is able to drill into how they are improving the Xbox experience and bring the thunder with games or how Ubisoft can display a tight, well-paced and well-produced show. EA really needs to move to Sunday or back to Monday with their briefing and focus on cleaning up the efforts of the show. They are EA, they have Star Wars and Battlefield and many of the biggest names in gaming, as long as they have something to show, they aren’t going to get lost in the shuffle. At this point, by the time Sony is over Monday night, most people have forgotten EA did anything at all, and the actual convention is so scarcely scattered with EA offerings (because they prefer their own show) it’s hard to allow people on the floor to just walk up and try out an Anthem demo for themselves. Some of this actually works in conjunction with the next main takeaway…

3. E3 Needs to Consider Changing Cities / Get Everyone Under the Same Roof:

I’ve been thinking about this for the past couple E3’s, but it really stood out more so this year that E3 needs to consider making this a roving show or at least get everyone back under the same roof. The thing about making E3 a show in a different place each year is that it would solve the problem of getting all companies in the same place at the same time again which benefits the consumers, press, personalities, etc. that are interested either in seeing the extravaganza of E3 and/or having the opportunity to walk the floor with plenty of different, interesting, mostly unreleased games to try out. This could, idealistically, help with the cost-benefit of E3 as it stands now where more and more folks, including two major mainstays of E3 in Microsoft and EA, are trying to get off the expensive LA Convention Center and into side venues. E3 could then be to gaming what WrestleMania is to professional

wrestling and cities could be bidding to hold the show which could keep costs lower for the companies and bring an influx of visitors to different cities. It also could provide cheaper travel for consumers paying to get into the show and potentially raise the consumers attending because it’s easier and cheaper for someone to get to Denver or Minneapolis or Phoenix than Los Angeles. Even if being a nomadic event each year is off the table, something needs to be done to get EA and Microsoft back under the same roof while doing a better job and accommodating smaller publishers and indie devs that have something cool to show off too.

2. Conference Style is Changing:

There was some interesting synchronicity between popular AAA games taking a new path and the E3 conferences doing the same. In a year where Bethesda is trying something bold and new with Fallout, Ubisoft taking a more RPG stance with Assassin’s Creed, CD Projekt Red completely going a new way with Cyberpunk 2077, Gears of War being made into an XCOM like game and Bioware stripping the blueprint of their success to try something else all coincided with an E3 conference lineup that all differed greatly from each other. It seems like the same experimentation that led to big games getting new blueprints, the conferences followed suit. Not everything was

perfect for the conferences, but it was truly fascinating to watch unfold as Bethesda held a variety show with musical performances, Ubisoft streamlined a perfectly produced mixture of old and new, Microsoft swung for the fences with big names and some showmanship, redetermining they are a games platform, and Sony tried for an artsy, stagecraft experience. Also, as a side note, a whole lot of live musical performances on stage this year ranging from a shakuhachi solo to Andrew W.K. Not every conference change was a hit, just like some of those games trying new things with established franchises may not, but it is exciting nevertheless, that people are trying to switch things up in lieu of becoming too stale.

1. CD Projekt Red Put on a Clinic:

Plenty of games from this years E3 came out of the week with much to talk about. New games from beloved franchises like Super Smash Bros. and The Last of Us, new IP like Anthem and Ghosts of Tsushima, and sleeper titles like Starlink, Tunic, and Sea of Solitude all grabbed the attention of the attentive fans. Nothing though stole the entire week quite like CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077. It seems like CD ran an old playbook, featuring a high profile trailer in a high profile slot at the Microsoft conference and spending the rest of E3 showcasing a mesmerizing, 50-minute demo to mostly press and industry folks alike. Their spot at the Microsoft conference featured no gameplay at all and quickly led to speculation that this game is way, way off in the future. However, group by group were able to experience a closed doors demo of what they had, and what they had was immensely more tangible than was perceived. Not only was the showing at Microsoft oozing with character and stirring up hype, but only taking closed door demos allowed the people that saw it to reference it as some sort of once in a lifetime religious experience, talking in hushed (and sometimes explicitly not so hushed) tones about what they saw to whoever would listen. It reminded me of reading about E3 in a magazine in the early 2000’s and having people jazzed about what they saw, allowing my imagination of what was seen to create a fervor for a singular game unmatched in several years. Not only did CD have something rad to show, they executed a plan on how to show it perfectly, and made them stand out in a week full of gaming news, both big and small. Kudos are deserved by the team at CD Projekt Red.