We have peaceniks in World of Warcraft, nude mods in Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and more Black Mesa, but the Game Awards overshadowed all that. Of course, no one cared about the winners — it was all about the commercials.
The news includes:
Let us know what you thought of the Game Awards.
Valve continues to have problems in the wake of Epic (and now Discord) giving developers more of the earnings pie, as the year draws to a close. Meanwhile, T.J. explains his gamertag.
This week’s episode includes the following news items:
Let us know what your favorite game of 2018 was.
Most folks in the game industry are already writing off E3 as an actual event to be attending. Even Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is calling it “virtually useless” for both retail and investors. The writing is on the wall and the reasons are obvious.
Publishers and developers didn’t want to invest the millions of dollars to make E3 a glamour show of epic proportions anymore. The lights, camera and action are all what the industry is about; the hype wagon in full steam. Gamers eat up the hype, bloggers and journalist rely on the hype and action to build readership and keep them coming back for more and retail uses it to gauge new releases and get a grip of the future.
Without the entertainment value of E3 nobody seems to care anymore. Large scale gaming entertainment is reflected in the large scale events and, at the end of the day, we want our conferences and shows to reflect the emotion and exciting of the industry.
“E3 had much more of an impact when it was a show,” comments IGN.com vice president of games content Tal Blevins. “The video game industry is about fun and entertainment, and we should have a show that reflects it.” (gamasutra)
Everyone is sad to see the state of E3, it’s like a cancer patient waiting for their final diagnosis. It’s unfortunate, it’s going to get worse and life will go on without it. In its wake, new shows will crop up while old shows increase in audience, excitement, intensity and cost.
As one show begins to fade others will grow to replace it and developers will yet again find themselves spending millions of dollars to be the best of show.
We review our experiences of PAX East in this podcast and the second half is full of gaming news and community comments. Derrick reflects at his fun experience of Orcs Must Die while Jonah spent some time with LA Noire and Star Wars: The Old Republic. The news highlights include:
This week’s question of the week: Which convention would you want to attend most: E3, PAX or Comic Con?
