I can’t even imagine an E3 happening in 2024. No chance a hardware manufacturer shows up, and even trusty old Ubisoft has figured out “hey! All we need is a camera, light, mics, and a trendy blazer or two and we can shoot this in our office!” Also, not only had the show outlived its usefulness in the last 10+ years, dev cycles just aren’t what they used to be. Long gone are the days of journalists getting tons of hands on demos at any of these things. The publisher wants to control the message and it’s not like 2001 when you can turn MGS1 into MGS2 in about two years. AAA Games regularly take 5 years and $300m to make. Back in the day E3 was all about “holy crap these are games I didn’t or barely knew of that I’ll get to play in a few months.” More recently it’s been Cyberpunk 2077. Show a fancy trailer, a date 4 years in the future, have a hands off demo 3 years later. Push it back a year, etc.
I’m not sure what’s next. It’s not totally keighley’s fault, the proliferation of YouTube and Twitch and the downward trajectory of write-ups on websites like this one is a byproduct of our visual-centric shrinking attention spans. The games market balloons more and more into mainstream culture, and the amount of people who want an in-depth interview with a developer gets smaller and smaller as the hobby grows bigger. People want the flashy trailer, and I think a larger portion of the audience can’t differentiate between gameplay and fmv than us here would be able to reckon with. They want the new announcement. And let’s be honest, most people want celebrities and don’t know how many people it takes to write and direct and code a game. They want Keanu Reeves being psyched and Jordan Peele shaking hands with the weird dude what made metal gear. I don’t think that’s GK’s fault, it’s the reality of the situation.
I’d like to see GK’s thing merge with something like DICE. Industry voted, jury of the peers. Like an Oscar’s that also debuted crazy awesome movie trailers for the upcoming summer. There should be a happy medium. Hopefully the backlash against short speeches this year makes them realize there IS a passionate games audience who just wants to celebrate the year in games. But I doubt it, the thing keeps making money.
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