Chris:

And now, my thoughts on E3.  

Games that I most want to play (in no particular order):

Dead Rush
Gran Turismo 4
Samurai Showdown 5
The Sims 2
Street Racing Syndicate
Full Metal Alchemist

Also, as a side note, "The Shield" Video Game, which, coincidentally, Iron is working on, looks pretty damn sweet.

I also made some observations on the evolution of E3 over these past few years.

#1:  Fewer booth babes - Booth babes are like a company's way of saying "Hey all you desperate games, please come to our booth and take pictures of these hot girls that will never, ever, ever have sex with you, so we can talk to you about our product".  Well, there seem to be fewer and fewer each year, in a rate proportional with the increase in female atendants.  The good old days of marketing games to horny men at E3 are over, but I suppose the golden age really ended when God Games stopped having their booth at the con.  There was really just nothing like two nuns going at it in a boxing ring and then tearing off all each other's clothes and wrestling in their underwear...

#2:  Less Swag.  - Maybe it was just because I went on Friday, but the dealers seemed to be giving away much less free stuff this year, and what was given away was much more likely to be some stupid flyer than the free shirts and posters of years past.  Apparently company's figured out that pretty much we just wanted to see how much crap we could accumulate at the con and had no actual intention of starting a business relationship with their company based wholly on a free t-shirt.  Damn...

#3: More Volume - If your booth is so loud that I can't hear you then I CAN'T HEAR WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME ABOUT YOUR PROJECT, JACKASS!!!

Well, that's about it.  I actually enjoyed myself.  Really.  Especially in Kentia hall, which had mostly smaller companies and hardware.  They were showing some pretty cool stuff, and the noise and exhibits didn't overshadow te product as much as the main room.  I was able to actually speak to some of the reps, which was kinda nice.  BTW - as a side note, if you're in the U.S., selling products to the U.S. market, you MAY want to have someone at your booth who SPEAKS ENGLISH!

More later if I remember anything.

Have a good read.

   -Chris Hazelton

May 17, 2004

Third-Child

Went to the Strawberry Festival is this weekend.  Ate lots of strawberries and now the whole house smells like it (cause I bought 1/2 a flat sillies).  Hrmmm strawberry everything!  :-) They even had strawberry beer.  Time to eat the strawberries again!

Smiles!

Third-child