E3 2017: The Good, The Bad and The Heat

Here’s a little report from one of the biggest video game events in the world.

E3 has been sort of a kryptonite of mine for a very long time. I wasn’t able to visit this exhibit for a very long time. Last year I had the chance and didn’t actually like what I saw. Closed spaces, the hegemony of PR, lack of demos and lines, lines, lines. In 2017 E3 became a public event and frankly, I expected the worst. Thankfully, the event suddenly began a new life, making things a lot more fun.

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Lines Are There

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Yes. The official press release states that over 68,400 people went to the event. It’s a huge number of people, but not as bad as Gamescom 2016, which harbored 345,000 visitors. Obviously, with a lot of people coming in, the publishers had to make their booths a little bit more accessible. Giants like Ubisoft and Activision/Blizzard had more open areas, more game stations ready and more places to play around.

There were more lines obviously, but they were faster and shorter. This time you could actually get a chance to play the game you’ve been looking forward too.

Embracing the Press

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So last year, when you can to the Nintendo booth, you’d have to bring the PR representative from your country to get a chance to play the new Zelda. This year it was so much easier. We could easily get into the big booths of Sony Computer Entertainment, check out Days Gone and have a little chat with the Sony Santa Monica about how great Kratos is. The whole atmosphere is definitely more relaxed.

Smaller Publishers Are There

 

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Usually, when you think of E3, you think of Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo. Big companies. This year was different. There was a very cool PR-stung by Devolver Digital, YouTube E3 show featured Monument Valley, Alto’s Journey sequel and Alex Nichipochic talking about his new game.

The floor was filled with smaller companies, who nevertheless, managed to show some really cool games. I really enjoyed my time with Focus Entertainment devs. The company actually brought a bunch of very cool games to the event: Vampyr, Greedfall, The Surge, A Plague Tale: Innocence. These were really high-quality games with top notch visuals, some very clever technology and interesting gameplay mechanics. Unlike some of the bigger competitors, these smaller companies actually work on games, which challenge you and present new mechanics.

The Shazang is There

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It is still E3. Big, loud and it’s all about video games. Bethesda built amazing big booths for Wolfenstein, Sony created a whole jungle ruins set for Uncharted. It’s all there and it’s just as full of bravado and shazang as the years before.

Maybe opening doors to the public wasn’t such a bad thing. E3 is still an amazing experience and we can’t wait to visit it in 2018!

Special thanks to our talented and super fast photographer Mike Miroshnikov, who was kind enough to make some photos. He’s the best.

 

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