ESA, E3 and you!
Posted On Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 By Jay
I haven’t blogged about the games industry in awhile, and I’m glad that I’ve finally stumbled upon some inspiration!
Relmstein posted a great overview of the ESA and E3 on his site. I would suggest going over to read it. I love the global conscience of the blog-o-sphere.
I want to add one point to his post. With the successes of PAX, Blizzard’s WWI and self hosted trade shows(There aren’t any more that are on my radar…) the need to have one large expo is being replaced by dedicated followers to one community(PAX) or one developer(Blizzard’s WWI). Gaming press and blogs are much more prevalent, covering the same content and building hype as before. I should also mention that many new pc games(thanks EA for investing in some new IPs!) have developer blogs. Time will tell whether this directly contributes to sales. I certainly hope so!
He does mention something that troubles me. The second paragraph from the end mentions developers that don’t enjoy talking with the player and their audience. Poo poo on them! As a develop myself, I would love the opportunity to chat with players of my products! I’m split on the importance of that one conference. Does GDC add enough?
As our industry matures, the need for a serious developer conference, ones like this one are becoming more needed to keep the veterans engaged and interested! Almost as important, the veterans should pass along their learnings over the years. Its very rare for any company to truly share its secrets, let alone any individual employee. I would venture to guess that any serious entry level developer read up on theory or, as many from the MMO community have done, become a serious expert in a game you play. Tigole and Furor did it, so can you!
