When you make your first strip to E3, you will finally realize just how many things can be corporately sponsored. The E3 grab bag is brought to you from Xbox Live!, the nametag was made possible in part by Nintendo's Gameboy Advance SP, and the staircase you are climbing up comes to you from Marvel Entertainment's The Hulk game, for the Gamecube, PS2 and PC-CDROM. On the way to the can, you'll halfway expect the toilet paper to have a corporate logo plastered somewhere on the roll. Not that corporate sponsorship is unexpected in a convention filled to the brim with television cameras, magazine photographers and Internet reporters but for E3 rookies, the experience can be slightly overwhelming.
This is just one miniscule piece of what makes E3 the techno rave of the videogame industry, or perhaps more appropriately, the Disney World of interactive entertainment. E3 is a smorgasbord of eye candy and audio ecstasy, with a liberal sprinkling of T&A for good measure. The unassuming will saunter into the Electronics Entertainment Expo not sure what to expect, only to get bowled over from an audio/visual assault, and a staggering amount of time can be spent just soaking it all in (especially the booth babes) and becoming acclimated to the new E3 environment.
At first glance, E3 looks like a carnival funhouse, with nothing to do nothing but waste hours away living the Technicolor Dream, surrounded by the games of tomorrow emblazoned on the biggest LCD screens and with audio pumping out of the loudest speakers.
However, nestled discreetly in between the sports stadium-sized monitors and neon-wigged models with vinyl short shorts, quietly stand the people that make this industry tick: the game developers. It's easy to miss them. They wear nothing to make them stand out of a crowd, usually nothing more than a polo shirt with a tiny company logo. The developers keep to themselves, with the majority of their time at the convention being spent standing in front of a LCD monitor demonstrating the game that they've been laboring over for the past few years. But upon being approached and inquired about the game they represent, these understated individuals suddenly open up, have their eyes widen, eager to provide answers to the inquisitors and openly take in feedback from past games, and suggestions for future ones.
While it is extremely easy to get caught up in the PR glitzy, glamorous, sensory overload that companies invest so much money into providing, astute gamers who really want to learn where this industry is going, can use E3 to get the word straight from the developer's mouth.
But enough gushing about the glitz and glamour of E3... let the games begin.
