IGN’s Tal Blevins wrote a well-thought-out editorial about how E3 was a shadow of its former self and that something had to be done soon, to save it.  He seems to feel that, based on his 15 years of attending every E3 in history, that the summit has lost its way, and its excitement.  He’s clamoring for pretty pictures and booth babes.  He lays out a plan to save E3.

So you can listen to Tal, the most E3′d man in gaming journalism, and accept that E3 is dead, or you can take it from me, a gaming blogger/regular guy who just attended his first E3 ever… and loved it.

Who you gonna believe?

Sure the LACC was a very sterile environment for an industry that prides itself on visual stimulation, but personally I wasn’t at E3 to be stimulated and entertained.  I went to see the latest and greatest games that the industry had to offer and to connect with the people that make them.  I might not have played Fallout 3 or Far Cry 2 on a 40-foot tall rotating platform surrounded by scantily-clad girls, but I DID get to play Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2, without waiting in line or having to wade through a sea of sweaty people trying to get their pictures taken with the token booth babe.  I actually was there to PLAY video games.  It’s novel, I know.

I think Tal and many of his colleagues are missing the point of E3.  As out-of-character as this is for me to say… E3 is not about creating a “circus” for gamers. It’s about giving developers, publishers, and media an opportunity to interface and exchange information and ideas.  It’s a way for sites large and small to cover more gaming content in less time than ever before. It’s about getting the mainstream press interested in upcoming video games.

Tal’s not exaggerating when he says in his piece that a lot of media folks felt that E3 wasn’t the same.  From the stories I heard, the place used to be insane with excitement.  Tens of thousands of people wading through the show floor to catch a glimpse of something new and exciting.

Now, it’s just a bunch of journalists and bloggers hustling to make their next interview or game appointment.

All I have to say is, Thank God.

Dave, Brian, and I were on the run all day, every day trying to make and keep those appointments.  In between we’d stop long enough to write something up or produce a video segment.  We had to multitask our asses off just to get 4 hours of sleep a night.  I can’t imagine trying to do everything we did do, and see everything we did see (probably only about 15% of what was being shown) if we were competing for real estate not only with 6,000 journalists, but also with 50,000 game fans.

Tal mentioned that he missed the 20 hour workdays that E3 used to force on him.  I submit that those days are probably shorter now because of how efficient E3 is.  You can move from room to room and knock out appointment after appointment, rather than trying to make it through a mad house.

I might feel differently had I “come up” in this golden age of E3 that everyone keeps talking about.  From my puny vantage point, however, I thought E3 was exactly what it needed to be.

The big games were shown, the announcements were made, and nerd networking was in full swing.  Even Activision, though no longer members of the ESA, couldn’t stay away.

For the party animals, Harmonix threw a HUGE party for Rock Band 2 (I sang White Wedding… even the high parts) and we got to see The Who (our only real “down time” of the week).

Tal’s remarks (which I respectfully/sarcastically disagree with) were at least grounded in sincerity and what I believe to be a very real professional desire to “improve” E3.

Others in the gaming media have been very childish in their evaluations.

I think other forces might be at work in the minds of a few, more seasoned gaming media pros.

I think they resent the presence of so many smaller community sites like ours taking up their lunch trays, game appointments, camera pit spaces, and media room cubicles.  While we were treated very kindly by Destructoid, 1up, Joystiq, and X3F, and even too-cool Kotaku, other outlets went beyond disinterest to downright disgust when we tried to introduce ourselves.  I’m not going to point fingers at anyone specific here, that’s not my goal at all.

What I am trying to say, is that in some cases I think many of “the pros” miss the days when E3 was open to the public because it was one of the few days of the year where their Internet fame transmogrified into physical celebrity.  Moreover, I’d say the E3 media elitists want a bit more pampering by developers and publishers.  I can’t tell you how many times I heard “seasoned journalists” complaining about the quality of this year’s SWAG. Good grief.

E3 is about media connecting with the industry they serve.  That happened this year.  It might not have been very glamorous, but the essential pieces were there.

Don’t worry Big Bloggahs.  You can still sign autographs at PAX.

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