Game Announcement Showcases Have Lost Their Luster

*06/18/24: You win this round, Nintendo.

Since 1995, E3 was the main forefront of tech showcases and game announcements. It used to be the event for exciting new games, hardware, and the like. Alas, thanks to COVID-19, the event is now no more than a relic of the past.

Nowadays, developers and publishers have their own little E3 shows. Nintendo Direct, Playstation State of Play, Xbox Games Showcase, etc. Beyond that, events like the Game Awards and Summer Games Fest have taken up the torch on the event front. Who needs one E3 when you’ve got a dozen mini-E3s?

Unfortunately, what we’ve gotten now is nowhere near as exciting. Oh, they used to be. Nintendo Directs used to be like an ice cream truck; they’d show up, give you something sweet and exciting, then disappear without wasting your time. Now? They’re a depressing insight into the poor state of the industry.

Take the recent State of Play. Thirty minutes to reveal two Overwatch clones, a Marvel game and a new IP that is somehow dead before arrival, a PC port of a game that already exists (which requires PSN because they learned nothing from the Helldivers II debacle), and an unnecessary Until Dawn remake that looks worse than the PS4 version. The only game announcements I cared about were Path of Exile II announcing couch co-op and Astro Bot, an incredibly charming 3D platformer starring the little PlayStation robot mascots. This shit was the video game showcase equivalent of, “This could have been an email.”

Back in the E3 days, announcement shows used to actually show new and exciting things. Plus, if you were actually at the event, you could try out demos, talk to the developers, meet up with friends, etc. You could make a vacation out of them. Now they’re half-assed and underwhelming advertisements. Watching them feels more like sifting dirt for gold.

Nintendo Directs have gotten especially bad. Hope you like indie farming games, because that’s all you’re going to get. Up until the end of the show, where they’ll announce one potentially exciting game. What an incredible way to spend forty minutes of our lives.

Maybe if they weren’t busy laying out lawsuits to every emulator or modder in existence, they’d actually have something exciting to show…

Then there’s the Game Awards. The show in which the actual awards are an afterthought, with passionate and talented developers rushed off the stage with rude efficiency. Who wants to hear from them when we can waste time with celebrities who have probably never played a game in their lives? Who better to announce yet another half-assed live service game? Unless your name is Hideo Kojima, Geoff Keighley doesn’t want to hear from you.

Hey Geoff, remember when you lambasted Konami for firing Kojima? Think you can use that massive platform of yours to address the multiple thousands of recent layoffs from other studios? No? Don’t want to risk alienating your corporate sugar daddies? Fine. Go ahead and promote your AI smell box instead. That isn’t character defining at all.

What is even the point of these anymore? Why bother with the big event if all you’re going to deliver is a nothing burger? Just drop the pomp, release the trailers online, and quit wasting our time.

Back in the day, these used to be fun. Nintendo would put on a fun show; they even had Muppet versions of their executives one year! It used to feel like passionate development teams were excited to show their work and having fun while doing it! Yes, they were still essentially advertisements at heart, but they at least tried to make a show of it! Which is kind of important for your games showcase!

Now, these showcases aren’t shows anymore. It’s a report. “Welcome to Microsoft Gaming. Here is a preview of our upcoming products. Buy one. Goodbye.”

Makes sense. If they’re gonna half-ass the actual games to chase a quick buck, why would they put any time, effort, or money into effective advertising? People are gonna buy the games anyways, right? Just slap something together with some fancy transitions, throw more soulless live-service games at the board, and see what sticks.

Or maybe it’s always been this way. Perhaps I’m just an old, jaded nerd who finally sees through the venire. Given the overwhelming negativity that follows every single one of these, though, I can’t help but wonder.

Granted, a lot of that negativity is because people didn’t get what they want. On the internet, it can he hard to distinguish between genuine criticism, temper tantrums, or blatant bigotry.

Though that last one is never exactly subtle.