Speaker 1: On July, Mr Robot returns to USA Network for its
Speaker 1: second season Get in Technology with tech Stuff from dot Com.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, flying so Low today, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about a particular trade show, not
Speaker 1: c e S this time. I'm talking about the Electronic
Speaker 1: Entertainment Expo or E three. E three concluded while I
Speaker 1: was on vacation. So I did not go to E
Speaker 1: three this past year or this this the two weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Really Uh. Instead, I was on a boat going around
Speaker 1: England and Scotland and Ireland. But I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about E three and its history and its place in
Speaker 1: video games. Um. It's something that if you've never been
Speaker 1: and you only have followed the news that breaks regarding
Speaker 1: E three, you may not be fully aware of exactly
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to be. It is a trade show.
Speaker 1: It typically takes place in Los Angeles, California, although it
Speaker 1: has taken place in other locations throughout its history. And
Speaker 1: it's uh, like many trade shows, it's really meant for
Speaker 1: companies to have lots of meetings and conferences, but also
Speaker 1: to show off their products. In fact, it's largely become
Speaker 1: a press oriented event where companies are unveiling big new
Speaker 1: ideas to try and get a lot of buzz behind them.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they do it a little too early and you
Speaker 1: might end up losing momentum by the time something finally
Speaker 1: comes out. Sometimes the things they announced never come out
Speaker 1: at all, and that also can become a problem. But
Speaker 1: I wanted to go through some of the history. Um
Speaker 1: and has gone through a lot of changes. It first
Speaker 1: debuted back in nineteen, so I'm gonna give a history
Speaker 1: and evolution of the show, including some of the big
Speaker 1: things that have happened during particular years. Don't worry, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna go through full details of every single year.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give overviews of a lot of them,
Speaker 1: but the early years I want to pay special attention
Speaker 1: to because that was back when E three was kind
Speaker 1: of finding its identity. Now, before E three, hardware manufacturers
Speaker 1: and software companies would show off their stuff at other
Speaker 1: types of trade shows, one of the big ones being
Speaker 1: ce S formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Showcase. In fact,
Speaker 1: the Nintendo Entertainment System debuted at c e S back
Speaker 1: in five and uh a Natari computer debuted back in
Speaker 1: the late seventies Xbox. The original Xbox debut in two
Speaker 1: thousand one. That was even after E three was formed.
Speaker 1: But the problem with c e S is that it's
Speaker 1: really big, and it covers the entire spec troum of
Speaker 1: consumer electronics. Video games are just a tiny little slice
Speaker 1: of that, so they would often be overlooked, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they'd be put in really inconvenient spots on the show floor.
Speaker 1: And for a while C E S and the Adult
Speaker 1: Entertainment Expo we're running at the same time. There were
Speaker 1: times where in order to get to the video game
Speaker 1: section at c e S you'd have to walk through
Speaker 1: the adult entertainment conference to get there. And a lot
Speaker 1: of the companies that were working on video game systems
Speaker 1: and software they didn't take too kindly to that. They
Speaker 1: didn't like that they were being shoveled off to the
Speaker 1: side or put in inconvenient locations. So there started to
Speaker 1: be some discussion among various companies about what they might
Speaker 1: do about that. So in some top video game publishers
Speaker 1: and hardware manufacturers formed a new organization called the Interactive
Speaker 1: Digital Software as Ciation or i d S a UH.
Speaker 1: This would later on evolve into the Entertainment Software Association
Speaker 1: or e s A. So in part, that association access
Speaker 1: an advocacy group for video game companies fighting for stuff
Speaker 1: that isn't always a benefit to consumers. For example, the
Speaker 1: e s A has supported SOPA and PIPPA, which are
Speaker 1: two pieces of legislation that a lot of people opposed,
Speaker 1: but they also advocate for stuff that consumers appreciate. And
Speaker 1: one of those things was how can we create an
Speaker 1: event where we can have our own trade show and
Speaker 1: we're not overshadowed by other types of technology. So in
Speaker 1: this association partnered with a company called International Data Group
Speaker 1: that are known as I d G to create a
Speaker 1: new trade show centered in Los Angeles. The event took
Speaker 1: place from May leven to May tht at the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Convention Center, and the day before the show floor opened,
Speaker 1: CEOs of some of the biggest game companies held a
Speaker 1: press conference to talk about the future of the gaming industry.
Speaker 1: If you follow E three today, you know that essentially
Speaker 1: the same thing happens now where companies will hold a
Speaker 1: huge press event uh before the show floor opens in
Speaker 1: order to get as much coverage as possible and excite
Speaker 1: people and convince them to come to their booth at
Speaker 1: the show floor and cover their products. And sometimes these
Speaker 1: events are amazing, and sometimes they are cringeworthy. You will
Speaker 1: sit through there and you'll hear some of the worst
Speaker 1: forced humor, particularly when you have executives who aren't really
Speaker 1: used to giving a lot of public speeches, and they'll
Speaker 1: do terrible setups and punchlines. I mean worse than mine,
Speaker 1: at least with mine. It's a natural delivery. The jokes
Speaker 1: are bad, but I know how to deliver them. So
Speaker 1: sometimes you get a great presentation that's really compelling. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you get a presentation that's pretty painful to watch. Usually
Speaker 1: the trailers help, the movie trailers, or rather the video
Speaker 1: game trailers help. They can move things along, even if
Speaker 1: the stage production part is a little hard to watch.
Speaker 1: So what was like, what was that first E three actually? Like? Well,
Speaker 1: I wasn't there, but I've read a lot about it.
Speaker 1: That was a big year in video games. That was
Speaker 1: when um Sega was touting the Sega Saturn. That was
Speaker 1: their attempt to try and rest the number one spot
Speaker 1: away from the Nintendo UH, which ultimately actually would fall
Speaker 1: on Sony's shoulders. Not Nintendo are not Sega's shoulders. So
Speaker 1: Sega had already launched the Saturn in Japan at the
Speaker 1: tail end of nineteen, but it wasn't scheduled to hitch
Speaker 1: store shelves until September two. However, dr ring Sega's press conference,
Speaker 1: the company surprised the audience by announcing it had shipped
Speaker 1: the Saturn to a few retailers in the United States,
Speaker 1: meaning it was available that day for the retail price
Speaker 1: of three hundred nine dollars four hundred bucks in That
Speaker 1: is not an insignificant amount of money, but it was
Speaker 1: a pretty good mic drop moment to say, you know,
Speaker 1: we thought about scheduling it so it would come out
Speaker 1: in September. It's available now. The first Sony PlayStation had
Speaker 1: also launched in the end of so it was still
Speaker 1: new on the market in Japan, but it was not
Speaker 1: yet out in the United States. So in Sony's press conference,
Speaker 1: they talked about it debuting in the US and Steve
Speaker 1: Race of Sony said only one thing during the press conference.
Speaker 1: Steve Race came out at the press conference, looked at
Speaker 1: the audience and the only thing Race said was two dollars,
Speaker 1: and that brought the house down. It was a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars cheaper than the Sega alternative. Nintendo, for its part,
Speaker 1: announced that its next system, which would become known as
Speaker 1: the Nintendo sixty four, would be delayed until so they
Speaker 1: didn't have any hardware to show off. They didn't have
Speaker 1: an enormous press conference at E three, but they did
Speaker 1: throw a big party before the show itself. Uh and
Speaker 1: the company has done some similar things in following E
Speaker 1: three throughout the years. In fact, there's some years where
Speaker 1: Nintendo doesn't really have much of a presence at E three,
Speaker 1: but will hold its own event just before E three two,
Speaker 1: kind of piggyback onto everything. Nintendo also had the largest
Speaker 1: booth on the exhibition floor space in the main hall.
Speaker 1: The second largest booth belonged to a Claim Now. One
Speaker 1: of the things Nintendo showed off was the Virtual Boy. Yes,
Speaker 1: the Virtual Boy, the migraine making machine that convinced us
Speaker 1: that virtual reality was a long, long, long way away.
Speaker 1: And it also shows how unreliable my memory is. I
Speaker 1: always associate the Virtual Boy as something that came out
Speaker 1: earlier before, in the late nineteen eighties. I associate with
Speaker 1: my childhood, but actually I was I was older than
Speaker 1: that when it came out. Maybe it was just a
Speaker 1: child at heart. At any rate, the Virtual Boy was
Speaker 1: a big push from Nintendo, and obviously that did not
Speaker 1: work out so well for them. Meanwhile, you had a
Speaker 1: CLAIM that was showing off licensed games like Judge Dread
Speaker 1: and Batman Forever. But those games were not terribly great.
Speaker 1: They didn't look great. It was it was clear that
Speaker 1: a claim was not incredibly sure that this was alone
Speaker 1: going to pull people into their booths. So they did
Speaker 1: something pretty innovative. You know. Keep in mind, this is
Speaker 1: the first E three, So what does the claim do
Speaker 1: for their booth. They get hold of the motorcycle from
Speaker 1: Judge Dread and the batmobile eel in Batman Forever and
Speaker 1: put both of those in their booth. And they also
Speaker 1: hired a ton of models, uh, young ladies wearing revealing
Speaker 1: clothing to entice people into their booth. So even at
Speaker 1: the very first E three there were booth babes uh,
Speaker 1: which is not a great you know, label, but that
Speaker 1: is what people tend to refer to, you know, the
Speaker 1: ladies who have been hired to bring people into the
Speaker 1: booth um. Also, at that time, the three D O
Speaker 1: was still around. The three D O famously one of
Speaker 1: the entertainment systems that never really got a good foothold
Speaker 1: in the gaming industry, but it was still around at
Speaker 1: that point, so get's the get Go was there. Three
Speaker 1: d O also decided to get some ladies to try
Speaker 1: and bring people into their booth. In that case, three
Speaker 1: d O went with these and Diego Chargers cheerleading squad,
Speaker 1: so subtle. Also Neo g O c D debut that
Speaker 1: was from S N. K Uh. One of the people
Speaker 1: in attendance a celebrity. This is really classy, John Wayne Bobbitt.
Speaker 1: He was famous for um, well, there's no reason to
Speaker 1: go into it on this show, but he was there
Speaker 1: and he was promoting a company that created interactive porn software,
Speaker 1: so a very unsettling kind of thing for some of
Speaker 1: the other companies. They weren't so sure that they wanted
Speaker 1: to have this kind of entertainment included with video games.
Speaker 1: So they actually designed the show floor so there was
Speaker 1: a bordered off section away from general traffic so that
Speaker 1: it wasn't just incorporated directly into the exhibition hall with
Speaker 1: everybody else. SEKA had the biggest booth at the South Hall.
Speaker 1: Sony also had a very large booth, Sony's was particularly
Speaker 1: flashy and expensive. Sony threw a big party, and the
Speaker 1: biggest news about Sony's party was about someone who attended
Speaker 1: the party just to play games, Michael Jackson h And
Speaker 1: at that time, Atari was starting to fade from the
Speaker 1: home console market. The Jaguar had underperformed in the market
Speaker 1: and so the company only had a small booth at
Speaker 1: E three. And if you're wondering what sort of big
Speaker 1: games were shown off in that year in they included
Speaker 1: classics like Twisted Metal and Mortal Kombat three. Uh. The
Speaker 1: next year in E three was a different story. First
Speaker 1: of all, Sega Saturn had completely flopped in the market,
Speaker 1: and Nintendo's Virtual Boy also was a failure, so both
Speaker 1: of those companies were nursing their wounds. In nineteen, Sony
Speaker 1: PlayStation was actually starting to gain some traction and become
Speaker 1: competitive in in Nintendo's space. Hadn't over taking Nintendo yet,
Speaker 1: but it was on its way, and no one was
Speaker 1: really sure at the video game industry was doing well
Speaker 1: or not. There were a lot of fears that with
Speaker 1: all the different video game systems on the market from
Speaker 1: all the different companies, that the industry was heading toward
Speaker 1: another console crash like the video game Crash of Night.
Speaker 1: So Nintendo that year announced the in sixty four at
Speaker 1: the show. Remember the previous year they had to delay it,
Speaker 1: so they announced the in sixty four. They're saying it
Speaker 1: would cost two fifty dollars. They also showed off Super
Speaker 1: Mario sixty four and that got a great response. When
Speaker 1: people saw that Mario could move and three dimensions, it
Speaker 1: blew everyone's mind, which is kind of funny to think
Speaker 1: about now, but at the time it was huge. Nintendo
Speaker 1: also announced the game that's widely considered one of the
Speaker 1: best of all time, Golden I, which is based off
Speaker 1: the James Bond film. Now, they just sort of announced
Speaker 1: it and showed a little bit of concept art and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. They didn't really go into my detail.
Speaker 1: That would come later. The next year. They also showed
Speaker 1: off a slim down game Boy called the game Boy Pocket,
Speaker 1: and at the Nintendo Party they had Circle A performers
Speaker 1: performing stunts and walking on stilts and stuff, which was
Speaker 1: a little weird from what I understand. Again, I wasn't
Speaker 1: there this one either. Sony announced that the PlayStation would
Speaker 1: drop in price to a dars. Now, this was controversial
Speaker 1: because the various presidents of the companies had kind of
Speaker 1: come to an understanding that no one was going to
Speaker 1: go to the press event and drop a bombshell that
Speaker 1: would adversely affect the other companies. So why did Sony
Speaker 1: come out and say the PlayStation was going to drop
Speaker 1: to a bucks. Well, this is because the person who
Speaker 1: was in charge of Sony at that time was newly
Speaker 1: in charge of Sony's video game market. So his excuse was, hey,
Speaker 1: was an agreement that my predecessor made. I never made
Speaker 1: that agreement. So Sony says, hey, we're gonna drop the
Speaker 1: price to all That kind of put the pressure on
Speaker 1: Nintendo and Sega, both of which would at the same
Speaker 1: event announced that their new consoles would come down to
Speaker 1: UM So that was that was a big deal that
Speaker 1: put a lot of pressure on those companies. That was
Speaker 1: also the year Microsoft first showed up to E three,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't too promote a console idea. It was
Speaker 1: to pitch Windows as a gaming platform. Now, that might
Speaker 1: blow your mind that in ninet Microsoft is saying, hey,
Speaker 1: let's have more developers create video games for Windows. But
Speaker 1: at that time there were a lot of games that
Speaker 1: were still based on or using DOSS as the operating
Speaker 1: system of choice. So uh, this was an uphill battle,
Speaker 1: or at least it seemed that way for Microsoft. It
Speaker 1: turned out that before too long it would be impossible
Speaker 1: for you to find a game that would run on DOSS.
Speaker 1: You had to get a Windows installation on your PC
Speaker 1: if you wanted to play games, because all the games
Speaker 1: were made for Windows. I remember at the time I
Speaker 1: was particularly perturbed by this because I was a Doss boy.
Speaker 1: E three changed venues. It actually went to the Georgia
Speaker 1: Dome in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Didn't get to
Speaker 1: go to this one either. At the time, in ninety seven,
Speaker 1: I was not working at how Stuff Works, so I
Speaker 1: was not in the technology field. I would have loved
Speaker 1: to have attended, but I wasn't qualified. Uh. E three,
Speaker 1: I should have mentioned earlier, is an industry only event.
Speaker 1: It's only been open to the public a couple of times,
Speaker 1: and um. Otherwise you have to be either in the
Speaker 1: video game industry or in journalism specifically covering video games.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you are not supposed to go. A lot of
Speaker 1: people end up getting passes to go for various in
Speaker 1: various ways. Like maybe they work in marketing, maybe they
Speaker 1: work for a video game retailer, like a retail store.
Speaker 1: But in general, you're not supposed to just have anybody
Speaker 1: show up to these things. They have to have some
Speaker 1: the credentials required to get in. So Georgia Dome, the
Speaker 1: trade show held some conferences, some actual panel discussions, not
Speaker 1: just press events and game demos. They actually held discussions
Speaker 1: about emerging trends and video games, including a strange new
Speaker 1: world of online gaming, something that was relatively young in Also,
Speaker 1: there was a type of video game that was really
Speaker 1: starting to get incredibly popular, first person shooters. They had
Speaker 1: been around for a few years several years actually, um
Speaker 1: since Wolfenstein three D came out in the early nineties,
Speaker 1: but they were starting to get some real traction, and
Speaker 1: so there were a conferences held about first person shooters,
Speaker 1: particularly for the consoles. So why did the company show off?
Speaker 1: Nintendo showed off Golden Eye Double O seven. This time
Speaker 1: they showed a much more detailed demo and that really
Speaker 1: impressed the E three audience. The four players split screen
Speaker 1: approach was a big innovation for console games. Nintendo also
Speaker 1: showed off a cute game called Conquers Quest about a
Speaker 1: fluffy squirrel and it was meant for kids, and this
Speaker 1: game would never come out, but it would mutate into
Speaker 1: a totally different, crude and appropriate game called Conquers Bad
Speaker 1: for a Day. More on that in a little bit.
Speaker 1: That same year, Sony announced Metal Gear Solid, which was
Speaker 1: technically a sequel to Metal Gear and Metal Gear Too
Speaker 1: Solid Snake. Metal Gear Solid would become the foundation for
Speaker 1: an extremely popular franchise that UM, as far as we know,
Speaker 1: has concluded since the creator has left the company that
Speaker 1: was publishing these, but that that's a story for a
Speaker 1: different day. That would be an entire podcast all on
Speaker 1: its own, and in retrospect, many people felt that the
Speaker 1: thirty three was kind of a letdown after the first
Speaker 1: two and that the Georgia Dome was probably not the
Speaker 1: best venue for the event. Uh that it just made
Speaker 1: the event to spread out too difficult to navigate, and
Speaker 1: it just wasn't ideal for showing off these games and
Speaker 1: the companies. And another black mark for this E three
Speaker 1: this was the E three where Duke Nukem Forever was
Speaker 1: first announced. Now that game would become synonymous with the
Speaker 1: term vaporware, and eventually Duke Nukem Forever would emerge out
Speaker 1: of development Hell in two thousand eleven, so announced in
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't be until two thousand eleven that it
Speaker 1: comes out, more than a decade later, and the response
Speaker 1: at the time was pretty negative. People were not impressed,
Speaker 1: especially considering that the game was spending more than ten
Speaker 1: years in development. So it would be really crazy for
Speaker 1: me to go into this level of detail for every
Speaker 1: single year, for every E three, so I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do that. I'm now going to kind of give
Speaker 1: you just some highlights of each year moving forward. Um
Speaker 1: and if you want to learn more about any given
Speaker 1: E three, I can always do a full episode about
Speaker 1: specific year if there's something that you think is particularly interesting,
Speaker 1: But for now, let's look at some of the highlights.
Speaker 1: So in n E three was still in Atlanta, had
Speaker 1: grown into a pretty major trade show with something like
Speaker 1: seventy thousand attendees, and companies were going all out. They
Speaker 1: were getting some some big name bands to play their
Speaker 1: parties like in ninety eight and included the Food Fighters,
Speaker 1: UH and the B fifty twos at industry parties. And
Speaker 1: again I'm very sad that I wasn't able to go
Speaker 1: in Sega ended up showing off the Dreamcast, which was,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, one of the great consoles Oft era. Sadly,
Speaker 1: I don't think Sega ever had a good idea of
Speaker 1: how to market it, how to leverage it, so despite
Speaker 1: the fact that it was a legitimately good contender in
Speaker 1: the console space, it never really got the the market
Speaker 1: support and needed to be a real competitor against Nintendo
Speaker 1: and Sony. Also shown in ninety eight was an early
Speaker 1: version of a little game called Half Life, and it
Speaker 1: is an ongoing joke in video game journalism about whether
Speaker 1: or not Valve will announce Half Life three at the
Speaker 1: next E three UM. Half Life is one of those
Speaker 1: games where people have been waiting for the conclusion of
Speaker 1: the story for quite some time, and there has been
Speaker 1: no word on if a Half Life three is in development,
Speaker 1: and even if it is, you know when would it
Speaker 1: possibly come out, But there's no word on an even
Speaker 1: existing period, so it remains one of the uh the
Speaker 1: the snipes that were hunting in video game journalism circles.
Speaker 1: Also at Nintendo showed off a game that was the
Speaker 1: legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, one of the um
Speaker 1: highly highly critically claimed Zelda games that came out in
Speaker 1: that time that in uh the Mask one was in
Speaker 1: Major's Mask. I think so that's the next one. But
Speaker 1: O Green of Time that was a game that I
Speaker 1: also had. UM and a lot of people thought that
Speaker 1: that was sort of the right direction for Nintendo to
Speaker 1: move in. E three came back to Los Angeles, so
Speaker 1: it leaves Atlantic goes back to l a. Uh. Sega
Speaker 1: announces that the Dreamcast launch date will be nine nine,
Speaker 1: so September, and we'll retail for one dollars, so it's
Speaker 1: pretty cute. Nintendo held a press conference that veiled Project Dolphin.
Speaker 1: Project Dolphin would eventually become the GameCube. They also showed
Speaker 1: off Donkey Kong sixty four. Another game that was on
Speaker 1: display was Quake three. Final Fantasy eight was also shown
Speaker 1: off that year. So some big names in computer and
Speaker 1: video games in two thousand there were. It was pretty
Speaker 1: much a game heavy year. UM The PlayStation two was
Speaker 1: announced by Sony. It had already launched in Japan, so
Speaker 1: announced rather for the know US shelves because the game
Speaker 1: system had already been out in Japan for quite some time.
Speaker 1: But among the games that were announced were Metal Gear
Speaker 1: Solid two Conquers Bad for a Day. So, now that
Speaker 1: Conqueror game that was originally meant for kids was definitely
Speaker 1: not meant for kids. It had lots of crude humor,
Speaker 1: a lot of cursing, uh, scatological humor, sexual humor, a
Speaker 1: lot of violence. I mean, the violence in that game
Speaker 1: is pretty incredible, even though the characters are very cartoony.
Speaker 1: Um So, Conqueror's Bad for a Day was kind of
Speaker 1: shocking because it was so out of character for Nintendo.
Speaker 1: Um and and it marks something people were wondering if
Speaker 1: Nintendo was actually going to make a bigger move into
Speaker 1: that realm of video games. Actually it did not. For
Speaker 1: the most part. Some third party Nintendo games get pretty violent,
Speaker 1: but most of the first party stuff doesn't. Also, that year,
Speaker 1: the game c Man was shown off, and c Man
Speaker 1: is one of the weirdest games I've ever seen. And
Speaker 1: again I could do a full show about that, but
Speaker 1: if you ever are curious, you can search for its
Speaker 1: C Man s E A M. A N fish with
Speaker 1: a human face. Nothing nothing wrong about that anyway. This
Speaker 1: was a more subdued E three, and partly because it
Speaker 1: was held the same year as the Columbine shooting in
Speaker 1: the United States the high school shooting, so there was
Speaker 1: a very different kind of atmosphere at this E three.
Speaker 1: The video game industry in general was under a lot
Speaker 1: of scrutiny at Washington, d C. So it was a
Speaker 1: difficult year for many reasons. In two thousand one, Microsoft
Speaker 1: joins the game for real, this time talking about the Xbox,
Speaker 1: but they didn't debut the Xbox at E three. They
Speaker 1: had already shown it off at c E S. Still,
Speaker 1: they brought it to E three to kind of enter
Speaker 1: the fray along with Sony and Nintendo and kind of Sega.
Speaker 1: People were still talking about Metal Gear Solid two, which
Speaker 1: had been shown off the previous year but still hadn't
Speaker 1: come out. A little game called Grand Theft Auto three
Speaker 1: was shown off in two thousand one, but here's the
Speaker 1: weird thing. No one really paid a engine to it.
Speaker 1: At the time. No one thought it was going to
Speaker 1: be a big deal. It was mostly overlooked. Nintendo was
Speaker 1: pushing the GameCube pretty hard, but it was still delayed.
Speaker 1: It had not yet launched, and Saga pretty much got
Speaker 1: out of the hardware game that year. Two thousand two,
Speaker 1: the biggest game on the show floor was Doom three
Speaker 1: and that was only in an early demo build, but
Speaker 1: the game caused shockwaves throughout the show floor, and the
Speaker 1: reason was because the game engine and the graphics engine
Speaker 1: were so advanced compared to other games that they really
Speaker 1: caught people's attention. There were a lot of effects that
Speaker 1: you didn't typically see in games at that time, like reflections,
Speaker 1: um so reflective surfaces were showing effective reflections, also destructible environments.
Speaker 1: This was stuff that had not really been shown in games,
Speaker 1: at least not many games up to this point, and
Speaker 1: it really got a lot of people's attention. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you had some interesting drama going on at the exhibition
Speaker 1: show floor. EA and Vivendi were fighting each other Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings and Hobbit style, and I really do
Speaker 1: mean that. So e A was showing The Two Towers
Speaker 1: preview over and over again, uh, because this was the
Speaker 1: year The Two Towers was going to come out. And
Speaker 1: then Vivendi was showing off footage from its Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings and Hobbit inspired games inside a domed theater
Speaker 1: and projecting it on the top of the dome. So
Speaker 1: you had these two companies kind of Lord of the
Speaker 1: Rings fighting each other in a snarky way. Uh, the Army,
Speaker 1: the U S. Army was actually at E three that year,
Speaker 1: showing off a recruitment tool they had developed called America's Army.
Speaker 1: And if that sounds familiar to you, you are probably
Speaker 1: a fan of a certain zombie game. There have been
Speaker 1: a few mods of America's Army, and uh some of
Speaker 1: them have been pretty famous, and including some that are
Speaker 1: more famous than America's Army. But this was the year
Speaker 1: America's Army showed up. Was two thousand two. Also, Battlefield
Speaker 1: two was a big hit that year. In two thousand three,
Speaker 1: half Life two became the big news, so Doom three
Speaker 1: the previous year. Half Life two steals the show in
Speaker 1: two thousand three and sets the stage for people to
Speaker 1: ask where is half Life three for the next decade
Speaker 1: more than a decade. Uh. Microsoft also got really good
Speaker 1: buzz because they showed off a preview for Halo two.
Speaker 1: I remember distinctly watching videos of the Halo two reveal
Speaker 1: and hearing the audience go totally bonkers, just like you
Speaker 1: could tell people are getting chills, and it makes you
Speaker 1: if you're if you haven't been to any three and
Speaker 1: seeing one of these demos, it might be hard to
Speaker 1: imagine how such a thing could get a reaction, But
Speaker 1: it really is contagious. When people are getting excited, it's
Speaker 1: easy to also feel excited as a special kind of experience.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Halo two made a big, make, a big,
Speaker 1: big splash. Doom three had not yet come out, so
Speaker 1: it was being pretty quiet about Doom three for the
Speaker 1: most part. In two thousand three, since it had not
Speaker 1: yet debuted. Sony, however, announced new hardware, a PlayStation portable,
Speaker 1: also known as the PSP, and that kind of gave
Speaker 1: Nintendo a bit of a scare because Nintendo had their
Speaker 1: game Boy platform and now there was a new platform
Speaker 1: coming into play. Nokia also was there. The phone manufacturer
Speaker 1: was showing off a handheld device called the Engage, which
Speaker 1: failed to excite the crowd and ultimately became kind of
Speaker 1: a joke in video game circles. Sadly, in two thousand four,
Speaker 1: the PSP was not yet playable. They showed it off
Speaker 1: at the show floor, but every PSP unit was tethered
Speaker 1: the PlayStation portable. In other words, it was tethered to
Speaker 1: a pedestal, and it wasn't showing a playable game game,
Speaker 1: but rather just a looping video so that got a
Speaker 1: lot of people disappointed. They did show off the PSP
Speaker 1: working in hands off demos where a Sony representative was
Speaker 1: showing it off, but they didn't let attendees try it out.
Speaker 1: Nintendo that year unveiled the DS Portable System that's their
Speaker 1: dual screen system. Uh. And some of the games that
Speaker 1: people got excited about that were shown that year included
Speaker 1: God of War at the start of another franchise, Grand
Speaker 1: Theft Auto San Andreas. This time, the Grand Theft Auto
Speaker 1: game got a lot more attention and the SIMS to
Speaker 1: In two thousand five, it was a huge E three.
Speaker 1: That's when we started seeing the next generation of consoles debut.
Speaker 1: Microsoft unveiled the Xbox three sixty, Sony unveiled the PlayStation three,
Speaker 1: and Nintendo showed off The Revolution which would later become
Speaker 1: the Wii, and people began to complain about why, like
Speaker 1: why would you change Revolution to we come on? But
Speaker 1: they did. Big games that year included The Witcher, Alan Wake,
Speaker 1: the Elder, Scroll Scrolls for Oblivion, Quake for Civilization, for Battlefield,
Speaker 1: to Fear Spore. So not all of those games necessarily
Speaker 1: lived up to the hype of E three. Again, not
Speaker 1: something that you should find particularly surprising. This happens every year,
Speaker 1: but it gives you an idea like, these were the
Speaker 1: games that got people buzzing at E three that year,
Speaker 1: and not all of them paid off. Two thousand six
Speaker 1: was not a huge year. Sadly, two thousand six didn't
Speaker 1: have as big an impact as two thousand five, partly
Speaker 1: because two thousand five that's when they had all the
Speaker 1: big hardware announcements, So this was more about games and
Speaker 1: less about hardware. But some of those games included some
Speaker 1: real classics like BioShock and Assassin's Creed Mass Effect. Those
Speaker 1: are big names and video games and computer games. Also,
Speaker 1: Metroid Prime three and WE Sports were shown off that year,
Speaker 1: So it was a good year for games, but not
Speaker 1: one that unveiled a lot of hardware. Typically, I find
Speaker 1: that any three where there's not a new hardware announcement
Speaker 1: feels like a little bit of a letdown among the crowd.
Speaker 1: At least that's been my experience when I have ATTENDITY
Speaker 1: three any E three have been to where they didn't
Speaker 1: talk new hardware. People seem like I was really hoping
Speaker 1: to be surprised by something. Yeah, sometimes that just doesn't
Speaker 1: happen in two thousand seventy three shifted big time. So
Speaker 1: you may have heard about how E three went through
Speaker 1: this transformation like it was a big party getting more
Speaker 1: and more out of control. Year over year, you had
Speaker 1: stories about booth babes and ridiculous parties with huge amounts
Speaker 1: of money being spent on bands and dancers and um
Speaker 1: open bars, and just that it was becoming a party
Speaker 1: atmosphere to the point where it was starting some people
Speaker 1: were feeling that I was starting to harm the reputation
Speaker 1: of the video game industry overall. In two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: E three underwent an enormous change. It also had to
Speaker 1: do with decline and video game sales in some areas,
Speaker 1: so it downsized dramatically. First of all, the three moved
Speaker 1: to Santa Monica, not Los Angeles, and it was no
Speaker 1: longer held at a central location. Instead, companies held their
Speaker 1: own press events in various locations around Santa Monica, and
Speaker 1: attendance dropped. It was at about sixty thousand and two
Speaker 1: thousand six it moved down to ten thousand, and that
Speaker 1: was partly in response to criticism of how E three
Speaker 1: was really becoming this out of control party. Instead of
Speaker 1: a serious trade show. So there was some worry that
Speaker 1: this shift to a more serious E three would eventually
Speaker 1: hill E three itself, and there was a you know,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of other rules in place, like
Speaker 1: you weren't supposed to have booth babes. You weren't supposed
Speaker 1: to have these super out of uh control booths with
Speaker 1: lots of set design. It was supposed to be much
Speaker 1: more utilitarian. Moving over to two thousand eight, the E
Speaker 1: three conference goes back to the l A Convention Center.
Speaker 1: That year, Microsoft makes the move to turn its console
Speaker 1: into a fully fledged home entertainment system. So now the
Speaker 1: three sixty has a new live component that's been completely retooled.
Speaker 1: UM Xbox Live became a real powerful part of Microsoft strategy,
Speaker 1: and Microsoft even added support for stuff like Netflix starting
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. This was back when Netflix
Speaker 1: was using its strategy of getting on every platform it
Speaker 1: possibly could in an attempt to make it a universally
Speaker 1: accessible app. But it also helped Mike or Stoft at
Speaker 1: the time to kind of shift from being just a
Speaker 1: video game console to more of an entertainment system. UH.
Speaker 1: That ended up being a difficult story for Microsoft to
Speaker 1: tell because at E three. Generally speaking, your audience just
Speaker 1: once the video games. They don't necessarily want, you know, Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't really care if my console also can show
Speaker 1: movies or access the Internet. I want to know about
Speaker 1: the games. So that's been a kind of a difficult
Speaker 1: thing because they're they're certainly portions of the console market
Speaker 1: out there that is incredibly interested in the entertainment system
Speaker 1: parts of the various current consoles. Uh, And so maybe
Speaker 1: E three is one of those things where you just
Speaker 1: concentrate on the games and then other events you talk
Speaker 1: about the non gaming related capabilities of the console. Lots
Speaker 1: of games were on display in two thousand eight, including
Speaker 1: God of War three, Kill Zone two, Prince of Persia,
Speaker 1: Dragon Age, and Fallout three, one of the best games
Speaker 1: of all time in my opinion. There were rumors that
Speaker 1: that would be the final E three. People were wondering if,
Speaker 1: in fact the whole conference was just going to collapse
Speaker 1: in on itself. But then came two thousand nine and
Speaker 1: it totally wasn't the last E three. They had another one,
Speaker 1: and I got to go to this one. I actually
Speaker 1: attended the three. In two thousand nine, UM Microsoft showed
Speaker 1: off Project Natal which would later become the Connect sensor.
Speaker 1: Sony showed off its own motion control system, which would
Speaker 1: eventually become the Move Controller system. People were arguing that
Speaker 1: this was in response to Nintendo We, which had already
Speaker 1: introduced motion controls and got a lot of attention. The
Speaker 1: Wei was incredibly successful early on, and partly because it
Speaker 1: appealed to people who weren't um traditionally referred to as
Speaker 1: like hardcore gamers. I personally hate the arm hardcore gamer,
Speaker 1: and I hate the term casual gamer. But essentially the
Speaker 1: We appealed to a broader range of people than the
Speaker 1: other consoles did, so in part the Connect and the
Speaker 1: Move were strategies to try and create a more um
Speaker 1: appealing approach to a broader audience, although you could argue
Speaker 1: how effective or not effective they were. Some of the
Speaker 1: games announced include Left for Dead Too, which wasn't really
Speaker 1: shown off but was talked about, Crackdown to Halo O
Speaker 1: D S T fours A three. The Beatles rock band
Speaker 1: was shown off their Star Wars. The Old Republic was
Speaker 1: shown off there. I ran into Jack Potillo and Jeff
Speaker 1: Ramsey at the two thousand nine E three while in
Speaker 1: line for a demonstration of the Beatles Rock Band. I
Speaker 1: remember that Nice Guys by the way in Connect officially debuted,
Speaker 1: and so did PlayStation Move. There are tons of games
Speaker 1: announced in but I'm not going to go through them
Speaker 1: because they were almost all sequels. Uh, You've heard a
Speaker 1: lot of sequels already in this and that's another issue
Speaker 1: is that you have video game companies that are, on
Speaker 1: the one hand, introducing new intellectual property is a good
Speaker 1: idea because people start getting fed up with sequels and
Speaker 1: there's always the opportunity to create a new franchise out
Speaker 1: of brand new intellectual property. On the other hand, the
Speaker 1: games that have already been established have audiences already, so
Speaker 1: it's easier to or at least in theory, it's easier
Speaker 1: to please that audience by coming out with a new
Speaker 1: iteration of that or a new sequel to That's that franchise,
Speaker 1: but was pretty much franchise heavy, or rather sequel heavy,
Speaker 1: so I skipped it. That's when Nintendo shows off the
Speaker 1: Wii U. This, of course, is the game system that
Speaker 1: has the controller with a game pad in the middle
Speaker 1: of one of the controllers, and it allows for different
Speaker 1: types of gameplay, including using the game pad. Is like
Speaker 1: a site for a gun in a game, or a scanner,
Speaker 1: or sometimes you could do like a one gamer versus
Speaker 1: four gamer kind of thing, with one person on the
Speaker 1: game pad controller and the other people using the regular
Speaker 1: weed controllers. Uh. It didn't really capture the imagination of
Speaker 1: the crowd the way Nintendo had hoped. Sony would unveil
Speaker 1: the PlayStation vina in Microsoft didn't have any a new hardware,
Speaker 1: but it did unveil Halo four, which got people excited. UM.
Speaker 1: Uncharted three and the tomb Radar reboot both got a
Speaker 1: good response and are both very similar to one another
Speaker 1: if you played Uncharted three and tomb Rater. It's I
Speaker 1: like to think of them as I think of Uncharted
Speaker 1: three as the game called and then I climbed, and
Speaker 1: then tomb Rater I think it was the game game,
Speaker 1: and then I fell down. So, but maybe that's just
Speaker 1: me being snarky. It probably is. I'm an old man.
Speaker 1: BioShock Infinite was unveiled, which had an amazing art style
Speaker 1: and uh concept behind it. You can argue whether or
Speaker 1: not BioShock Infinite ultimately lived up to its potential. I
Speaker 1: think it was pretty good. Um. I really enjoyed the game.
Speaker 1: They also show off sky Rim again, another game that
Speaker 1: I loved. It took me a long time to complete
Speaker 1: it because I enjoyed playing it, but I wasn't too
Speaker 1: concerned about actually fulfilling the story. Mass Effect three also
Speaker 1: shown off in two thousand eleven, another game that both
Speaker 1: got people excited and ultimately got a lot of people
Speaker 1: angry when they when they finished Mass Effect three. Two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve not a hardware year, but definitely a big
Speaker 1: game year. Watchdogs was shown off, although it would be delayed.
Speaker 1: It would be shown off again in teen, but it
Speaker 1: wouldn't come out until Far Cry three was shown off
Speaker 1: in Assassin's Creed three. Last of Us one of the
Speaker 1: best games ever. I'm not a PlayStation fan in general.
Speaker 1: I'm an Xbox player primarily. However, I do have a
Speaker 1: PS three and The Last of Us is one of
Speaker 1: the best games I've played on any platform. Resident Eval
Speaker 1: six was shown off. Dead Space three was shown off,
Speaker 1: but again not a real hardware year in two thousand thirteen.
Speaker 1: That was the year of the Xbox One in the
Speaker 1: PS four, so a huge hardware year, and there were
Speaker 1: big press events all around these two new consoles. Nintendo
Speaker 1: hung in there with the Wi You, but again was
Speaker 1: not getting a lot of attention. Big games that were
Speaker 1: announced Store on Display that year included Assassin's Creed four
Speaker 1: Black Flag, another game that I really enjoyed, although I
Speaker 1: think it's particularly it's a little repetitive, but so are
Speaker 1: all the Assassin's games. Uh. The Ablow three Destiny was
Speaker 1: shown off Halo five, which was a big deal that
Speaker 1: Destiny and Halo five were being shown off. Bungee, of
Speaker 1: course was the company that had designed where had come,
Speaker 1: had built the Halo games originally, but had moved on
Speaker 1: to work on Destiny. Uh, and then um Microsoft was
Speaker 1: essentially the steward of the Halo franchise at that point.
Speaker 1: Elder Scrolls Online was shown off, which I got to
Speaker 1: try and I thought was interesting, but ultimately never purchased.
Speaker 1: And it seems like I was not the only one.
Speaker 1: Kingdom Hearts three was unveiled. Mad Max was shown off.
Speaker 1: It would take a couple of years for that game
Speaker 1: to go through a couple of redesigns before it would debut.
Speaker 1: St Row Saints Row four rather shown off. Star Wars
Speaker 1: battle Front was teased, Quantum Break was teased as well.
Speaker 1: Sunset over Drive was shown off, and two thousand fourteen
Speaker 1: was another game heavy year, with Alien Isolation in Dead
Speaker 1: Island to Dragon Age Inquisition, Dragon Age Inquisition rather Grim
Speaker 1: Van Dango Remastered, which I was really excited about because
Speaker 1: that was one of those Lucasart schemes that I thought
Speaker 1: was really really great. It was. I was very happy
Speaker 1: to see that it was going to come back. Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones game from Tale Tale was announced. No Man Sky,
Speaker 1: which we're still waiting on right now, was shown off
Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen. Also two thousand and fifteen, UM
Speaker 1: Mortal Kombat X showing off Shadow of More Door shown
Speaker 1: off Inten two thousand fifteen. More games like Assassin Screed, Syndicate,
Speaker 1: Dark Souls three d Oh, Sex Mankind Divided, Fallout four,
Speaker 1: which was announced at Bethesda's first ever press conference along
Speaker 1: with Fallout Shelter The Division. Dishonored too was shown off
Speaker 1: a little bit or announced cup Head Gears of War four.
Speaker 1: I Am Bred. I Am Bred, one of the most
Speaker 1: important games made in the last decade. Mass Effect Andromeda
Speaker 1: was teased. Overwatch was first shown off. I am currently
Speaker 1: playing Overwatch badly, so if you see me on Xbox Live.
Speaker 1: John B. Strickland is my gamer tag and you will
Speaker 1: see me fail miserably repeatedly, and Overwatch. They also showed
Speaker 1: off Uncharted four and Until Dawn, which I thought was
Speaker 1: a pretty interesting idea for a game that brings us
Speaker 1: up to this year teen and I realized, I've just
Speaker 1: been rattling off video games, and if you're not interested
Speaker 1: in video games, I know that this has been a
Speaker 1: trial to listen to, and I apologize for that. But
Speaker 1: it was one of those things where it's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting to look back over E three and here are
Speaker 1: some of these big names being mentioned years before they
Speaker 1: ever came out due to delays or maybe there were
Speaker 1: problems in production that weren't anticipated. I guess that technically
Speaker 1: that still falls under the term delay. I didn't list
Speaker 1: all the games because there could have been quite a
Speaker 1: few of games that just never came out or haven't
Speaker 1: come out yet at any rate. But tway sixteen, let's
Speaker 1: let's clear it up. Let's take it on home. Microsoft
Speaker 1: and I had a big press conference where they showed
Speaker 1: off the Xbox One s also known as the Xbox
Speaker 1: One Slim, which is supposedly a smaller than the current
Speaker 1: Xbox UM plus they showed off a new wireless controller,
Speaker 1: so we got some new hardware this year. They also
Speaker 1: demonstrated a cross platform program that would allow gamers to
Speaker 1: play the same games on Windows ten or on an
Speaker 1: Xbox one. Sony meanwhile announced that in October it would
Speaker 1: release the ps VR. That's the Sony VR headset what
Speaker 1: used to be called Project Morpheus, So it comes out
Speaker 1: later this year in October. Probably one of the VR
Speaker 1: headsets that will have a decent chance at some early
Speaker 1: success because there are a lot of people who already
Speaker 1: own a p S four, So purchasing a headset, which
Speaker 1: I think is going to be three dollars if I'm mistaken,
Speaker 1: I don't have the number in front of me, but
Speaker 1: people who want to buy it, they already have a
Speaker 1: p S four that it will run on. Whereas some
Speaker 1: of the other VR headsets which have been a big
Speaker 1: big deal in this past e three, like the HTC
Speaker 1: Vibe and the Oculus Rift, if you don't have a
Speaker 1: pretty strong computer system, a good gaming rig, then the
Speaker 1: purchase price of the HTC Vibe and the Oculus Rift
Speaker 1: is just the beginning. You have to go out and
Speaker 1: purchase a computer too. And so the HTC Vibe is
Speaker 1: eight hundred bucks. The Oculus Rift is six hundred. The
Speaker 1: computer you would need to run either of those, and
Speaker 1: a really decent performance setting would be about dollars. So
Speaker 1: you're looking at more than two thousand dollars in the
Speaker 1: case of the HTC Vive to have a system, and
Speaker 1: that's before you talk about any games. That's just so
Speaker 1: that you have the hardware. So I think Sony's ps
Speaker 1: VR is positioned in a way where it could see
Speaker 1: more success than some of the alternatives, even though you
Speaker 1: could also argue that being tied to a console means
Speaker 1: that you have a ceiling for as as good as
Speaker 1: it can get, because with PCs you can always upgrade,
Speaker 1: or you can buy a brand new machine that is
Speaker 1: compatible with your your hardware and continue to push the
Speaker 1: limits of what that hardware can do. With a PS four,
Speaker 1: unless you purchase a brand new PS four that has
Speaker 1: improved specs, and that may or may not happen, you've
Speaker 1: got a ceiling for as good as it's gonna get.
Speaker 1: It will just be at the top of the performance
Speaker 1: of the console, and then that's as far as you
Speaker 1: will go. So there were a lot of VR titles
Speaker 1: shown at this year's E three, including Star Trek Bridge Crew,
Speaker 1: which I think is brilliant. I would love to try
Speaker 1: that out. But there are other some There are some
Speaker 1: other big titles, not just VR titles, but titles in general. Uh.
Speaker 1: Nintendo showed off the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild.
Speaker 1: For a while, we were told that was gonna be
Speaker 1: the only thing Nintendo showed. They also showed some Pokemon,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people were impressed by the Legend
Speaker 1: of Zelda trailer. Other games included Mafia three and Resident
Speaker 1: Evil seven, Titan Fall two, Watchdogs Too, and lots lots more.
Speaker 1: So going to one of these events can be fun
Speaker 1: and exhilarating, it's also exhausting. It's crowded. UH. Typically, if
Speaker 1: you are not someone who's exhibiting or have special access
Speaker 1: to the show floor before it opens, your experience tends
Speaker 1: to be waiting in line first, waiting in line for
Speaker 1: the show floor to open. Then the show floor opens,
Speaker 1: and there's an initial rush into the show floor as
Speaker 1: everyone tries to get to specific places, and then waiting
Speaker 1: in line some more so you can get your turn
Speaker 1: trying out the the latest video game system, and it's
Speaker 1: it can be frustrating because you usually only get to
Speaker 1: play for a couple of minutes, because the whole point
Speaker 1: of the demos just to give you a feel for
Speaker 1: the way the title works. So it's not um. It's
Speaker 1: not the ideal way I would say to experience a
Speaker 1: first impression of a video game, unless you happen to
Speaker 1: be connected to a large outlet where they're bringing the
Speaker 1: games to you, in which case, you know, you get
Speaker 1: to sit back and have more time and less frustration
Speaker 1: to enjoy the experience. However, you do get a chance
Speaker 1: to see these things firsthand, and and there's something special
Speaker 1: about that. There's no denying that. I should also say
Speaker 1: I have never attended one of the E three's where
Speaker 1: people got a free console or a free game. I've
Speaker 1: never been some of the press conferences. Occasionally you'll hear, hey,
Speaker 1: everyone here gets a voucher for a brand new Xbox. No,
Speaker 1: I've never been to one of those. I have every
Speaker 1: year I have gone. The announcements have been interesting, but
Speaker 1: I didn't walk away with hundreds of dollars worth of swag.
Speaker 1: That's not so much a complaint, it's just me kind
Speaker 1: of thinking about my lousy timing. Ah, but that's not
Speaker 1: the reason that people should go. People should go because
Speaker 1: they're trying to cover the industry anyway. That's the E
Speaker 1: three stories so far. The the conference is pretty much
Speaker 1: returned to the old party crazy sort of approach. Maybe
Speaker 1: the parties aren't quite as over the top as they
Speaker 1: used to be, but the show floor does still have
Speaker 1: some pretty impressive booths, usually with some amazing setting where
Speaker 1: you know you'll you'll go in and they've redone the
Speaker 1: booth so that it looks like you're walking into one
Speaker 1: of the games, where you might see like a life
Speaker 1: sized mech statue that you can get into and get
Speaker 1: a photo of yourself in it, or that kind of stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: So it definitely has returned to the more showy version
Speaker 1: that it was when it first started. There are still
Speaker 1: some people who are asking whether or not E three
Speaker 1: is valid, if it's a if it's something that would
Speaker 1: that should continue, or perhaps company should hold their own
Speaker 1: press events at a time of year that is beneficial
Speaker 1: to them. In other words, go the Apple approach. Instead
Speaker 1: of being part of a big trade show like E three,
Speaker 1: go do your own thing, and that way you're not
Speaker 1: sharing the stage with all the other companies. I haven't
Speaker 1: heard any rumors about E three going away, and I
Speaker 1: don't expect it will go away in the short term,
Speaker 1: but perhaps we'll see a difference moving ahead. I think
Speaker 1: in the realm of VR, assuming VR is successful, E
Speaker 1: three still has a very valuable place because as somewhere
Speaker 1: that people can go and get that VR experience and
Speaker 1: then report on what that experience is like. Uh, It's
Speaker 1: it's harder to do that at individual press events, but
Speaker 1: at a big thing like E er, where you're going
Speaker 1: to find a lot of different companies working with VR headsets,
Speaker 1: like HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift or one of
Speaker 1: the dozen other ones that are out there on the market,
Speaker 1: you're more likely to be able to encounter that experience
Speaker 1: it and then communicated to other people. I don't know
Speaker 1: when I will go back to E three. I was
Speaker 1: supposed to go to E three this year, except for
Speaker 1: the fact that I had scheduled my vacation to fall
Speaker 1: right at the same time as E three. It wasn't
Speaker 1: entirely my fault. That's when the boat left, so I
Speaker 1: had to go on the boat, and I hope i'd
Speaker 1: get to go back and check it out again. If
Speaker 1: any of you guys have been to E three, maybe
Speaker 1: you have experience working E three one way or the other,
Speaker 1: or you have a shoal place in your heart for
Speaker 1: E three, or maybe a really funny story that's E
Speaker 1: three related. Send it to me. I want to hear
Speaker 1: from you, and also send me any suggestions for future
Speaker 1: episode topics. I would love to hear about that as well.
Speaker 1: You can email me the addresses tech stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com or drop me a line on
Speaker 1: Facebook or Twitter. I use the handle text stuff h
Speaker 1: s W for both of those, and I will taught
Speaker 1: to you again really soon for more on this and
Speaker 1: bathos of other topics. Is it how staff works dot
Speaker 1: com