By John Walker on June 3rd, 2009 at 11:00 am.
Hello! I’m at E3. I’ve been doing this job for over a decade, and I’ve never been before this year, so I feel at once all wizened and experienced, and young and naive. I’m settling for a compromise of old and tired. Since I’m here, and trying to find moments in which to write up bits and pieces (see today’s Brink and The Old Republic pieces), I figured I’d also write a bit about the whole experience. Um, I should make this pretty clear: this won’t be productive.
I spent the weekend in Seattle, my newshound nose bringing you all the Left 4 Dead 2 news that was so warmly received. It really thrilled me, swelled my heart, the way our super-almost-world-exclusive (it would have been, if pesky IGN hadn’t seen it too) was met with such a response of kind-hearted interest and enthusiasm. A treat.
Then Monday I arrived in LA, all set to go to the EA opening presentation, to find out all their exciting revelations. Except my plane was late, and it turns out LAX is flipping miles from city, and there was a WAR! A war between aliens and robots that was really quite a bother, traffic backed up for miles. So I sat in my hotel in my pants, and then went out for Korean BBQ with a friend who lives in town. It’s this dedication that you read RPS for.
But Tuesday morning meant proper work. By morning I mean lunchtime. For some reason this year’s E3 didn’t start until 12pm on Tuesday, rather confusing everyone involved. This was made even more confusing by the rather officious decision to keep all non-exhibitors out of the hall before the 12pm opening, making reaching a 12 o’clock appointment something of a struggle. I have a media badge, damn it! MEDIA!
The badge thing is pretty interesting. I don’t know if you know about Jane Elliott’s blue eyes/brown eyes experiment, but the badges at E3 seems a pretty effective way of recreating it. The exhibitors have orange stripes on their badges, while media have black. This is accompanied by the splendid words “All Access”, which lets me hold my badge out from the strap around my neck and march past disappointed security guards with my nose high in the air. It means I can go up escalators out of bounds to the green stripe people. Ew, green stripers are just awful. Thousands of them, cluttering up the place with their non-all-access permissions, acting as if they deserve to be at the same games show as my people. I know they’re a simple, lesser sort, and I should give them my sympathy, but instead I barge my way past them on my way into the media ONLY hospitality area to drink my complimentary iced tea.
My first impression of the event was that it was simply too enormous. But as it turns out, it’s not that bad. The big companies have their ludicrously huge stages and booths in the middle, and then all the cuddly smaller developers area scattered around the outside. My first visit of the day was the splendid High Rez Studios to see Global Agenda, which I’ll tell you all about in the next couple of days. I liked that this was my first call, away from the insane noise of EA and Sega and the like, in a nice, gentle area. Of course, I didn’t have to play with the dreadful green stripers, but instead was welcomed through a black door into a tiny pretend room.
Then it was pretty non-stop all day, rushing from one appointment to the next, all day long, with only enough time to steal two grapes and a Sprite from Valve’s secret NO GREENS room.
Sadly the glamour of my delusional importance does not stretch outside of the Convention Center, and as I sit here on a freezing patio area thing, six metres away from my hotel room so I can at least get a whiff of internet access, my poor little legs are getting too cold. Which is better than too hot, which I was for the majority of the day. Apparently the weather is unseasonably mild for the time of year, according to the nine hundred and sixty weather bulletins on NBC this morning. If it had been one degree hotter I would have stood in the middle of the street screaming until I died.
What will Wednesday bring?!?!
03/06/2009 at 11:09 The Hammer says:
Nice report, John! I’m happy to see the stupid bombastic E3 back, and am always interested to hear about what actually goings on at the expos, rather than just knowing about the games. Looking forward to the next diary!
03/06/2009 at 11:11 MrBejeebus says:
haha, have fun Mr Walker!
03/06/2009 at 11:11 Professor says:
Hopefully valve denouncing l4d2.
I don’t know about you, but from what I’ve seen, the responses for l4d 2 have ranged mostly from apathy to extreme displeasure.
Also, I hope for some proper news on mass effect 2 and maybe some more info on AVP?
03/06/2009 at 11:15 DSX says:
It didn’t happen without pictures of John Posing with unnamed booth babe #42.
ps: any stuff on “I am Alive” would be sweet.
03/06/2009 at 11:18 Seniath says:
@Professor Don’t mention
the warL4D2.03/06/2009 at 11:24 Dante says:
@ Professor:
I think there’s been a fair range of reponses, it’s just that the “OMG WORST THING EVER” folk are the most vocal ones. As usual.
03/06/2009 at 11:30 Dante says:
I’m curious John, did you stick to the PC stuffalone, or where you seduced by any of the big console presentations and feel guilty and used afterwards?
03/06/2009 at 11:34 Xercies says:
@Dante
If he did stick to PC Only he wouldn’t have much to go to…
03/06/2009 at 11:35 Piispa says:
They actually did an international research which showed that people with green stripes were less intuitive and their brain activity was less active than those of with black or orange stripes. They theorized that the more thrilled personality of the more intelligent populance colors the stripe on the badge to black or orange based on the activity of their brainwave, but leaving the stripe of the less intelligent people green.
03/06/2009 at 11:48 Noc says:
I find myself wondering what a “pretend room” entails. Is it just, like, an area marked out on the ground with tape, with a door inexplicably stuck in the middle of the floor? Where you sit inside and pretend that you are enclosed by walls? ?!?!? ?!
?!?!?!?!
?!?
. . .
?
03/06/2009 at 11:49 Monkeybreadman says:
Good write-up, i want a black pass too….. and to be there……and not at work.
Things i want to know about is Bad Company 2, Operation Flashpoint 2 (are they even there?), Diablo 3, Alan Wake, AVP, Singularity, Borderland, Bioshock 2 multiplayer, Mafia 2 and Brink sounds good, any video?
And I want pictures of girls surrounded by geeks
Get to it
03/06/2009 at 11:49 Jim Rossignol says:
Or he could have been fully booked for the entire event… which he was. (Unless you’re excluding cross-platform.) In fact I think there’s a bunch of people he’s not going to have time to see.
03/06/2009 at 11:51 Captain Bland says:
It’s good to know you’re actually enjoying it, the whole thing sounds nightmarish. We appreciate your sacrifice! Now go get me an exclusive on Obsidian’s Fallout game.
03/06/2009 at 11:52 NotJeff says:
Sounds a bit like a Hunter S monologue – will subsequent days report’s bear reference to decadence and passages from Revelation?
03/06/2009 at 11:55 Carra says:
How are the booth babes this year?
03/06/2009 at 12:03 Bobsy says:
If you insist on booth babes (sigh) then @Schizoslayer tweeted this earlier: http://is.gd/N2pA
03/06/2009 at 12:13 CMaster says:
@John – I don’t think you should see the reaction to your exclusive as people hating you for putting in the effort to get the information. Just that people have a variety of feelings about the news itself, as they often will.
Having seen all of this yourself, what’s your take on the idea that E3 is a collosal waste of money on impressing and treating people such as yourself which could instead be used to say, pay developers salaries or hire some actual bug testers? Do you think that the need to create impressive rooms etc is a waste, or that E3 is a great way for everybody to get their game heard about?
03/06/2009 at 12:13 Ian says:
Is Korean BBQ similar to Mongolian BBQ? Because I’ve been to one of those restaurants and they rock.
03/06/2009 at 12:30 mr_monolith says:
Nice touch of Brave New World there.
03/06/2009 at 12:48 Surgeon says:
Those orange stripes have gone to your head :D
Any chance of some Jumpgate Evo updates?
Have fun!
03/06/2009 at 13:00 Count Zero says:
E3 sounds like a lot of fun, a barrel of monkeys worth in fact, but for some reason it’s always been a ‘trade-only’ event. Being a member of the general public, and thus bellow even the green badge, I’ll never get in…
I mean what’s the point of loud music, semi nude booth professionals and celebrity has-beens other than to impress me, Joe Public?
03/06/2009 at 13:03 MCHN says:
“It really thrilled me, swelled my heart, the way our super-almost-world-exclusive (it would have been, if pesky IGN hadn’t seen it too) was met with such a response of kind-hearted interest and enthusiasm. A treat.”
Hahahahaha, quite so, Mr. Walker, quite so. People, especially spoiled little internet man-child people, are ungrateful sods sometimes.
03/06/2009 at 13:07 Subject 706 says:
Please, oh mighty RPS, bring us some news of the less known, non-FPS games. Disciples 3? Majesty 2?
03/06/2009 at 13:08 leelad says:
I was going to ask of Blizzard where there but it’s kind of a stoopid question. Why spend so much time on a bizarre ticketing system for your own event when you’re going to announce stuff there.
Because you wouldn’t.
Nothing i’m currently waiting on at E3 then D3, SC2 and a big swirly vortex with purples in. (Rumored)
03/06/2009 at 13:09 The Fanciest of Pants says:
@John Walker.
Well I liked your L4D 2 article John. Serious plague of whiners in RPS comments lately.
03/06/2009 at 13:10 mickiscoole says:
I am going to assume that because there are NO GREENS in the super secret valve room it means that it contains Ep 3 gameplay.
Its not like Valve are working on any other game at the moment…
(I am actually looking forward to L4D2. An actual storyline? count me in. It is just that I would have liked Ep 3 stuff more)
03/06/2009 at 13:32 E says:
Go play Split/Second – that’s the game we’re working on here down in Brighton :)
03/06/2009 at 13:39 jalf says:
hey, your pseudo-exclusive rocked! It was far more interesting than whatever E3 press conference I was streaming when it was published. Just because not everyone liked the news you brought them doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate your work. (And I’d say it was met with plenty of interest and enthusiasm. At least, lots of people took an interest, and there’s some pretty enthusiastic debating going on in the comments).
As a RPS article, it was great. As a strategy for Valve, L4D2 is more controversial. I’m not sure how I feel about Valve ditching L4D so quickly, but having so much info on the sequel available here was awesome.
Btw, green stripes are regular attendees, I assume?
By the way, why’s everyone so crazy about Ep3? I’d have thought people were more interested in Portal 2, future plans for L4D (sequel or otherwise), TF2 updates and all their other games, given how relatively low-profile Halflife has been lately. Not that I’m not looking forward to Ep3 myself, I just hadn’t expected it to be that much in demand.
03/06/2009 at 13:46 Bananaphone says:
John, you going to cover games from the less prominent studios? Every games site out there is talking about the latest news from Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, EA and the rest but there must be loads of other smaller outfits attending.
03/06/2009 at 13:49 MikeBiggs says:
@John Walker
Well you have my thanks for the L4D2 preview! Valve may be doing themselves a disservice with this, on the other hand they may pull it off.
Either way I’ll play the game and be happy!
03/06/2009 at 14:02 Stuk says:
Ooo, more write ups like this please. I want to live like a super star journalist by proxy :)
I imagine the “pretend room” was just four plywood walls, with no roof? And I appreciated your L4D2 report. Shame having an (almost) exclusive exclusively brings the Angry Internet Men here to rant.
03/06/2009 at 14:15 Sonic Goo says:
What pretend rooms might look like:
http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/winter2004/features/images/exterm1.jpg
03/06/2009 at 14:28 Golden says:
Oh John, the sacrafices you make for us salavating gamers.
03/06/2009 at 14:28 yutt says:
@John Walker
I was certainly appreciative to have your L4D2 exclusive to read, it was of great value to RPS readers. That doesn’t mean I am happy about the news itself. But, unless you have far more sway at Valve than I am aware, that is completely outside of your control.
You certainly shouldn’t feel that criticism of the information you presented is in anyway criticism of you or your efforts.
03/06/2009 at 14:48 Meat Circus says:
John, have you paused to consider exactly why you spectacularly misread the Left4Dead expansion pack brouhaha and failed to ask appropriate questions that would have contextualised why so many people are pissed off with Valve?
In this case, sneering at the AIMs just doesn’t cut it. You missed a trick here.
03/06/2009 at 14:56 James says:
@ Jim Rossignol – Oh, Jim. You and your sarcasm are wonderful
@ John Walker – Screamed in the street until you died? LA was the same temperature as London yesterday! Be happy it’s not 20 degrees warmer, let alone one! Here’s hoping the weather holds for you – love the writeups so far. Please put old and tired on hold long enough to fill us plebians in on the legendary E3 parties everyone raves about.
03/06/2009 at 14:59 Xercies says:
@Jim
Well you can’t count any of the Multi Xbox-PC games because apprantly theree exclusive to Xbox. So I don’t know why were talking about Left 4 dead, its exclusive to Xbox 360.
/sarcasm
03/06/2009 at 15:06 Psychopomp says:
One of these days, I’m going to fly every Brit down to Texas, in the middle of August.
I find it silly hearing news reports on “record weather in Britain/Northern state,” and you’re only putting up with 90 degrees farenheit
03/06/2009 at 15:21 Ploddish says:
And then we’ll all be dead. And then you’ll be sorry.
Lovely article, Mr Walker. What’s the hotel room like?
03/06/2009 at 15:27 cHeal says:
Oh no, not that time of year again :(
03/06/2009 at 15:44 P7uen says:
@ Meat Circus:
I respectfully disagree, I want my RPS puppets to glean as much about the game as possible, leave the contextualisation of brouhahas until later, thanks.
@ John Walker:
As you were, soldier.
03/06/2009 at 16:14 Smurfy says:
@Count Zero: No, anyone can get in if they’ve paid.
03/06/2009 at 17:10 Rei Onryou says:
I hear they revoke your BLACK stripe if you reveal the existence of the secret Valve room and replace it with a PINK stripe! They also remove a testicle. Oh the horror of being lower than GREEN.
I’m enjoying the write ups so far John. Very happy reader here. I’m one of the rare ones happy about L4D2.
Can we also get some exciting pictures. I want hotel rooms, pretend rooms, yawning producers, geeks shying away from booth babes, booth babes, John posing with booth babes, more booth babes. Also, John hugging the most out of place booth person. And hugging Joe Kucan (Kane) if he’s there. Because he’s clearly huggable. I suppose you should also preview some games while your at it, but c’mon, think priorities! ;)
03/06/2009 at 17:12 Fumarole says:
Sorry, but by definition AIMs deserve nothing less than sneering.
03/06/2009 at 17:26 Jeremy says:
In all fairness, he admitted this post wouldn’t be productive :) Better to wait for the rage to clear out before addressing that bugbear we call L4D2. And yes, sneering is a required part of the food chain of gamers, just like those unfortunate AIMs that necessitate it.
@Rei, I’m excited about L4D2 as well, and honestly, I think the majority will be. It just so happens that the minority has to express itself much louder than the majority in order to be heard.
03/06/2009 at 17:38 yutt says:
The Old Republic News is exciting. Looking forward to seeing what new announcements come through today.
Edited for Brian Blessid’s sake. Even though L4D2 was mentioned in the article, and is obviously the hottest topic.
03/06/2009 at 17:39 Vinraith says:
@John Walker
Negative reactions to games which will go unnamed are about the news being reported, not the people reporting it. I can understand wishing for a more positive reaction to an exclusive find, but bad news is bad news no matter how well it’s reported. In short, don’t take it so personally, I don’t think even the angriest of that mob are interested in shooting the messenger. Keep up the great work, we appreciate it.
03/06/2009 at 17:40 Alec Meer says:
For Brian Blessed’s sake – will you lot either quit the endless L4D2 bitching or at the very least keep it in the L4D2 threads. Yes, I know poor, tired and overworked John unhappily mentions the nega-response in this post, but we really don’t want the entire site to be about the one game.
03/06/2009 at 17:46 P7uen says:
Well then of more relevance to the post, did anyone else think that the E3 logo on the left was that picture of Bart Simpson mooning?
No…?
03/06/2009 at 18:00 Markoff Chaney says:
Loving the coverage, I am. Thank you, Good Sir. Keep the brain working and stay clean (with showers, that is) and get rest and food. Conventions can be a joy as well as a Sisyphus like exercise in futility, frustration and death wishes (like moderating a gaming website that allows feedback, I would imagine). Share and Enjoy!
Also, for Brian Blessed’s sake – DIIIIIIIIVVVVVVVEEEEEE!!!!!
03/06/2009 at 18:07 clive dunn says:
@P7uen
Jesus, you’re right!
when i reload the page and it just flashes briefly in the corner, it IS Bart mooning. Well spotted!
03/06/2009 at 18:30 Bret says:
Isn’t Black the lowest rank?
Then red, then orange, etc, with the highest being Ultraviolet?
03/06/2009 at 18:56 Pace says:
The gamma ray badge would win, clearly.
Another entertaining article, Mr. Walker, keep letting us know how you’re doing!
edit: oh, and don’t forget to pick us up some compo prizes while you’re there..
03/06/2009 at 19:27 Marshall says:
We’ve also had an unseasonable lot of earthquakes lately. Ought to be glad you missed those.
03/06/2009 at 19:36 Don says:
@John Walker
I don’t think too many folks want to shoot the messenger just because you brought some news from Valve that has met with less than universal enthusiasm. Though you’re right to refer to its warm reception, the Steam L4D2 forum is a virtual inferno.
Though perhaps next time you get 40 odd minutes chat time with a guy from Valve you might like to save the demonstration of how much swearing you’re allowed to do until after you’ve run out of pertinent questions. Such as why anyone with functioning brain cells above double figures should go out and buy a copy of L4D1 for anything more than a few pennies when a bigger, better game will be along soon and, it appears, no discount if you’ve already shelled out for the first one.
03/06/2009 at 19:55 dozilla says:
dammit I wish I was there! Even as a dirty Green Striper!
03/06/2009 at 20:16 Lack_26 says:
We need this band system for the commenters, everyone who starts out is assigned a coloured brown. The more meaningful the comments the higher rating you get, being given certain privileges. Those who spam assigned ‘worse’ colours.
Eventually, once we have a picture of who are dissenters we working on a list of where people live based off their IPs, eventually we can detain them, of course judging by the L4D2 thread the camps will soon start filling up and we’ll have to start ‘disposing’ of people.
Yes, it all makes sense now. We must do this to maintain purity in our comments.
03/06/2009 at 20:20 SwiftRanger says:
Keep it up John, don’t mind our reactions.
I hope you’re bringing some detailed news about SupCom 2, with you being such a big RTS fan (oh wait… :) ).
03/06/2009 at 21:44 Erlam says:
The second you work in the industry, the second you can totally see why, and back the idea of, making a new game instead of an expansion.
I was actually quite thrilled with L4D2 – Frying Pans! I haven’t FPS’d with those since PO’d.
03/06/2009 at 22:07 Muzman says:
A 30 degree day in London is pretty damn hot. I say this as a Perthite who knows a thing or two about damn hot. It’s the humidity, and the whole city kind of throbbed with heat well into the next day (and it’s not a small place). So plenty of Poms would have occassional experience of mean temperatures. This doesn’t mean they should lose the hilarious overreaction to heat we fans demand, though.
And can I bring up L4D2, just a little bit? Go on. It’s a journalism question.
When this came up wasn’t there anything but delight in your surprise? No doubt, no slight confusion?
I mean, when I saw the headline I said to myself “Already? This’ll cause consternation” and I’m not exactly someone you’d describe as having his finger on the pulse of gaming. I’m sure someone foresaw a, let’s say, mixed reaction.
Feel free to tell me to bugger off and listen to the podcast.
Anyway, huge temperature shifts are all part of The Procedure, as it is known. Soon you’ll be shoving around the greens at the behest of the oranges like a true believer. The new dawn approaches.
03/06/2009 at 23:16 Marshall says:
As day 2 carries on, you’ve probably not been outside to notice, but it’s gotten quite cool and rainy all of a sudden… I’d hate to think you’d wished this upon us.
As an aside (or more on topic, I guess), I’m probably not plugged into the proper circles, but I hadn’t noticed much furious excitement over HL2EP3. But I personally would be pretty interested to hear a word or two…
Unlike a lot of folks, I was actually quite enjoying the single-player stuff, particularly if you started from the beginning of HL2 and went straight through to the end of ep2. Carries a bit of momentum that way (something about not waiting a year and a half to see consecutive moments connect); and although a lot of the storytelling is pretty thin in the new series, I found myself pretty interested by the end, what with the cagey hinting at so-and-so and the sudden demise of such-and-such…
OK, does anyone actually NOT know what happens at the end yet? And did anyone get the “put garden gnome into orbit-bound rocket” achievement?
03/06/2009 at 23:55 Alex says:
I don’t think it’s just the temperature. RPS are used to living in northern climes, where the sun isn’t nearly as high in the sky. Heck, I live in Canada and I’m still five degrees south of London.
04/06/2009 at 00:18 Serondal says:
The part about “If it had been one degree hotter I would have stood in the middle of the street screaming until I died.
” part made me laugh out loud. There is just something about people being in LA that don’t belong that makes me giggle, like Conan O’Brian moving there for his new show. I’m surprised he hasn’t got a constant sun burn.
04/06/2009 at 00:34 Fumarole says:
“And did anyone get the “put garden gnome into orbit-bound rocket” achievement?”
I did. You can check the global stats for that online. I’d link you but I am at work.
04/06/2009 at 00:40 jalf says:
I thought I’d be clever about that… I wanted to listen to the dev commentary anyway, so decided to combine the two, bringing the damn gnome with me while listening to commentary… About three quarters through the game a friend asks me “You do know you don’t get achievements in dev commentary mode, right?”
So no, I don’t have it… :D
04/06/2009 at 01:20 wcaypahwat says:
E3 was all over the local (australian) news last night.
Somehow fancy graphics and interacting with games using a camera have just been invented.
Well, the coverage wasn’t any worse than that one show we have about games :/
04/06/2009 at 04:36 vicx says:
Maybe it’s the nature of modern PR that our collective activities here in the comments can get John “green striped’ from the uber reveals. Would that affect the way we comment? If we had thumbs on comments would it affect that too?