Democratic Entertainment Expo

I don't know how many of you have been following the coverage of this year's Democratic National Convention, but a running theme in both the print and broadcast media this year seems to be the convention's utter lack of news importance. The ironic point of these stories is that the DNC is nothing more than a well-coreographed, four-day informercial that is all about surface impressions and offers very few surprises.



A similar charge could, and has, been levied against the relevance of our own Electronic Entertainment Expo.



It's not hard to find similarities between the gatherings. Among them:

• Both often seem more conerned with sound bites and flashy presentation than with serious debate of new ideas. At the DNC, issues like gay rights, corporate crime and election reform are pushed to the side for messages more palatable the mainsteam voters. At E3, experimental games like Katamari Damacy, Ribbit King and X-Tango are pushed to the dark corners of the convention floor in favor of blockbuster games with mass-market appeal.



• Both give attendees a very limited opportunity to really get to know the candidates/games that are being displayed. At the DNC, 45 minutes in front of an audience is just barely enough for a candidate to begin to outline their vision for the future. At E3, five minutes in front of a game console is just barely enough to get an idea of the play mechanics before writing up a "from-the-floor" report.



• Both offer very little that isn't alreasy announced or expected. Today's party conventions feature candidates that have been picked months before in nationwide primaries, a far cry from the often shocking battles for nomination in years past. Today's E3 offers very few games or hardware announcements that aren't leaked to the press at least a few days in advance, a far cry from the shocking price-cut and new game announcements that came during the show in years past.



• Both conventions shower the attendees with free stuff. This one is self-explanatory.

Given these similarities, one has to wonder if E3 is that important for the press anymore. Would the role of the Expo be better served just by sending out a bunch of demo disks and press releases to the media and saving everyone the plane fare?



I would say so, except for one key benefit of gathering everyone together at a centralized Expo -- the social aspect. The landscape of video game journalism is very fractured, both physically and content-wise. The myriad staffs of the various web sites and magazines occupy every different state of the union and state of mind you could care to list. E3 is a chance for these journalists to come together and share stories, ideas, and time with one another.



Besides meeting much of the staff of Game Critics at this year's Expo (my first), I managed to bump in to Brandon Sheffield of Insert Credit, Davis Thomas of the Denver Post and Chris Morris of CNN/Money (who I literally almost bumped in to). I also chatted with many other journalists -- from publications big and small -- to swap tales and opinions with during the rare idle moments of the show.



This casual meeting of the minds is essential in unifying what is an incredibly varied video game journalism landscape. I know many disparate groups of journalists often organize meet-ups at these events, but it'd be nice if there was some place that game journalists of all stripes could just hang out and meet one another (outside of the mad dashes for food that are the media breakfast and lunches). I know Dave Thomas tried to do one through the IGJA this year, but it laregly feel through. I hope we can be more organized about such a meet-up next year, because this year I learned that the real value of E3 is as much about the people as it is about the games.