E3 (or what was formerly E3)

I went to the last "official" E3 last year and I was glad I did. I went to support FEAR 360/PS3. It was a lot of fun - lots of things to see and it was pretty huge. The crowds really got into the games and it was nice to see the people we make the games for enjoying them.

Now that E3 is more business and "E for Everybody" is supposed to be the consumer show (is that right?), it seems a little strained. E3 this year had plenty of news, but it seems a lot of people that I work with were quite restrained. Only the head of our studio and Business Development went to support "Fracture" for LucasArts. We got a lot of good press - which is great.

My game "FEAR Files" for the 360 got a press release and not much of anything else. That's fine - FEAR is a great franchise, but people want to see the series continuation and my project is 2 expansion packs.

We'll get the full rundown on Monday for the results first hand from the guys who went. This is a huge industry and maybe E3 was a little out of control with spending on the publisher end. But, you have to push the products - and E3 is like the Super Bowl of video games. Advertisers spend huge amounts of money for commercials, so why wouldn't an extravagant booth/presentation be any less? The worldwide media flocks to events like these and eats it up.

I don't think this will last. Spending will ramp up again and we'll be back to the same E3 we saw last year.

Some games I am looking forward to playing:
Unreal Tournament 3 on the PS3 - This looks like a knockout and you can create unique content. Sold. Plus my underpowered notebook can't run this beast.

Mass Effect - Big fan of Bioware. Looks pretty solid with the gameplay. Even better than Oblivion.

Fallout 3 - Seems like we are rolling into a golden era of RPGs.

Monolith's F.E.A.R.quel - Always interested in what Monolith does.

MGS4 - Still looks awesome. If this is Kojima's swan song he'll go out on top.

BioShock - This comes out in August. I'm really looking forward to this one. We got into a screening last year at E3 and we were impressed back then.

Killzone 2 - I need another game for my PS3, and this looks like one I will pick up.