E3, the biggest gaming event of the year basically, is around the corner and unfortunately I don't give a flying fuck about it, at all. I'm not making this post to be all controversial and hate on the show but I'm here to lament how what once was a truly exciting time for me has been reduced to nothing more than a slight blip on my radar.
I remember back in high school I had a group of friends that I'd play games like Counterstrike with. When E3 rolled around we'd all jump on a Ventrilo server and watch the live coverage and discuss the games that were announced. I also remember in my second year of university, a friend coming down to my apartment and we stocked up on large amounts of pizza and soda and then watched the event while we played other games, tons of fun. Even a few years ago, when I had a short stint of living in Sweden, I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to watch the conferences live and then spending the best part of the next day talking about the event with friends.
Even before all this live streaming stuff was popular, back when I was just a wee child, I remember seeing footage on TV from E3 and getting incredibly exciting about the idea of something like that even existing. I'm sure I gave my parents an earful about how badly I wanted to go to LA to see the show for myself but unfortunately it never came to pass.
E3 now however is a sad shell of what it once was. Nintendo have pulled out of the show and this year Sony did the same. That alone is enough for me to stop caring because I live in Japan and no one gives a fuck about Xbox over here so I have no interest on need to watch a conference from Microsoft. Sony and Nintendo are doing their own thing at the same time as the show. I'll just go and watch their shit directly rather than waking up early to catch some bullshit talk from EA or Bethesda. The last few years have also seen the event marred by various controversy over things like gender, race or identity politics. I'm trying DESPERATELY hard to avoid any of that bullshit but if the last few years are anything to go by, it means that following the news closely will guarantee that I walk face first into a wall of clickbait bullshit. If we get through the entire event and there isn't some claim that "X game is racist" or "Y company is sexist" or something like that, I'll eat a shoe
That's not to say I'll be ignoring it completely, once the show is over, the Nintendo Direct done and the Sony thing aired, I'll be sure to at the very least look at a list of games and follow up on things that interest me. Personally I'm hoping to see some Shin Megami Tensei 5 news during this whole period but to be brutally honest I probably have a better chance of finding a chicken that lays golden eggs.
