The Embarrassment of E3

As time goes on, I get more and more obsessed with the idea that games can be used to create very significant and meaningful experiences for people. E3 tries to undo everything I'm trying to tell people, and I'm getting tired of it.

Nintendo was the clear "winner" of this year's E3. Granted, the Nintendo 3DS is pretty cool, but there's a different problem here. The problem is Nintendo "won" E3 by announcing a TON of sequels to long established franchises. If that's what it takes to be the winner in this industry, I'm officially embarrassed.

This isn't even counting the numerous other things that are wrong with E3. In the article I mentioned previously, David Wong said that the gaming industry treats gamers like they're hormonal 17-year-olds. This has never been more true than at E3. Two words: Booth Babes.

*Image withheld to deny any sort of satisfaction*

It's bad enough at car shows, but it's 10 times worse at E3.

Aside from the awful things E3 does for the image of gamers like me, it just showed that the industry is clinging onto gimmicks. Motion control, in my opinion, hasn't been used in a very compelling way yet. Project Natal (now called Kinect) seemed promising when it was announced. It was a new technology that went about motion capture in a different way than the Wii. But after this E3, Microsoft only showed gimmicky games that have been piled on the Wii the past few years. The only difference was that these had better graphics. The same goes for PlayStation Move, which is even more like the Wii than Kinect. So in the end, all three companies are now just doing the same thing as each other, and attempts at innovation have fallen short.

E3 saw very few new franchises announced, which is the only exciting thing happening in the industry at this point. No new intellectual property makes Dan bored.

New episode Monday (June 21)! Check out this sneak peek!