

There will be nothing revolutionary here.

I am not different or unique--no special voice emanating from the bowels of the internet. What I am is grumpy, sarcastic, and belligerent. I'll talk about whatever I deem fit, or unfit, and you'll either pay attention, or you won't. I know two things: entertainment technology and hockey. You'll be hearing about them alot.
Now that the introductions are out of the way, let's start today's post, entitled:

Why E3 Still Sucks

If you didn't know, E3, or the Electronic Entertainment Expo, started today. For years, E3 has been the place where gamers learn about all of the upcoming IPs that will steal their hard-won holiday and birthday money in the coming months. It's where itinerant gamers first learned about the Xbox, the Halo, the Rock Band, and what hot women cosplayers--I mean booth babes--do.

In the past years, e3 has gone from being a spectacle worthy of the most debauched Las Vegas adult video convention to a scaled back, more tasteful convention. Before the economic meltdown even started, Game publishes scaled back their booths from quarter mile seizure inducing arcades to sensible PowerPoint presentations. Included in the scale-back? E3 went from being open to most to being invitation only. 2006's E3 had 60,000 visitors. 2007 had 5,000.

As a youngin', I remember reading about E3 months after it happened in my trusty Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine. After memorizing every detail about my favorite games-to-be, I'd dream of the day that I would visit those hallowed halls, drool over those booth babes, and play those demos before anyone else. Alas, my internships to EGM, Nintendo Power, PC Gamer, SEGA, never came to fruition, despite me sending in all of my high scores encased in hand-drawn envelopes.

Old enough as I am, I might be able to finagle an invite now, but why bother? E3 is useless in the age of blogging websites. I already know the release dates of most titles years before they come out. My biggest pet-peeve--that a title's release date has been pushed back and not finding out until I go to pick the damn thing up at the store-- has been annihilated by the Internet. I no longer have to look at pictures of the video game, I can watch the video game be played. Hell, sometimes I can play the game myself (thank you Xbox live).

What's the point of E3? Booth babes aren't a substitute for sound level design. Free swag doesn't replace a good story line. Even if you brought back all of the glitz and opened it to the public, it just doesn't work anymore. It's not a comic book convention: Video gamers can share their passion with their peers every day. I don't want to stand in line with a backpack to play a buggy game for 5 mintues. I can laugh at my opponents as I crush them and hear the lamentations of their women through my headset. I have no idea who the individuals are behind Halo, or Left 4 Dead, or Assassins Creed. I barely care about celebrities that are, you know, famous.

All in all, the entertainment expo is just a dinosaur byproduct of the video game industry. I'd rather them take half the money it takes for the expo and go to Vegas. Put the other half back in the game, because lord knows they don't spend enough money on games already.

But that's another rant.

Hockey, or, Why I Threw Up Last Night:

Just a couple of thoughts on the weekends fun-filled fracases:

  • Malkin should have received a Suspension, Zetterberg owes me two penalty shots, and Detroit owes me a delay of game for the octopus. Still, put Gonchar with Crosby, slap MAF around a little, and pray that the bounces go our way.
  • Mark "I'm a super-douchebag" Madden on the pens chances, "You heard it here, first, people. The Pens will not lose another game this series." From your lips to God's ears, Sally.
  • Bettman's Right: it's not about South Ontario. Moving the Coyotes to Hamilton may be the right move, but so is following at least some of the rules for, you know, owning a team in the NHL.


  1. I've been saying it for a long time now...either MAF isn't as good a goalie as the money we just paid him, or our defense sucks too bad for him to be brilliant. Say what you will about Malkin's non-suspension, but he's showing a lot more energy and presence than he did in the finals last year.

    I remember a guy who called in sick to work two days in a row to play Rock Band on the demo bus.

  2. MAF is not Belfore, or Roy: He's Barrasso. He wins by allowing one less, not by shutting out. He makes the big saves when we need them and usually doesn't let a bad goal phase him.

    Malkin matured this year and got more comfortable. He learned how to speak (broken) English and got his parents to move in with him. Those things are huge: he's not just an outsider anymore, he's ours... and slowly, Pittsburgh is becoming his.

    And, B)

    Ah to be young and temporarily employed.

  3. I have to say, I do agree that the E3 money they paid Sir Paul and Ringo to be the "special guests" (and by special I mean retarded - did you see their appearance?) could probably have been spent on making something suck less in the Beatles version of Rock Band for the E3 shindig. I have to say, that Microsoft really sees $$ with the Xbox this time around, and I have to applaud them for pulling out the stops to make their product kick some ass. For the last year I've been kicking myself thinking that the Xbox had been worthless past the 3 year mark, but now that I can Twitter and Facebook the shit out of it, I'll be set for at least 6-8 months longer.

    Regarding your hockey thoughts Josh, 2 games like that in 2 days would make anyone want to puke. I really like watching Malkin play - when he gets the puck it's like he taped the thing to his stick sometimes. I just wish we had some guys with the vision he, Sid and Gonchar on the wings. Go Pens!

  4. I am pleasantly surprised by how MS is simply adding features and integration to their current platform for free rather than making us buy a new one. It's a good strategy too since given the choice between a PS3 and an inevitably more expensive Xbox 720, developers and gamers would likely ignore the new for the comfortable.

    As for Paul and Ringo at E3, to paraphrase one of the snarkier music critics out there: in the Venn diagram of my brain the circles including Beatles members I still care about and Beatles members who are still living do not touch.


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