When Gamespot Editorial Director Jeff Gerstmann was abruptly fired under controversial circumstances late last year, it set off a sort of domino effect. In the wake of the scandal, Gamespot staffers Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella all decided to leave the venerable site to start a new project with Gerstmann: a project called Giant Bomb. A skeleton of the site has been up since March, but the project really got going Monday with an overhaul that mixes user-created, wiki-style pages with editorial reviews, videos and podcasts from the four-man ex-Gamespot crew.
We talked to Giant Bomb co-founder Ryan Davis about his thoughts on the new site and his departure from Gamespot, and game journalism in general. Some excerpts from our conversation (be sure to click the "Continue" link for the full interview):
On Gerstmann-gate and the state of game journalism "Obviously we still have lots of friends and a ton of history there [at CNET], but we're so focused on the good stuff we're doing now. ... [Gerstmann-gate] certainly helped get our names in people's mouths in certain circles. ... Before [Gerstmann-gate] even happened, I felt like people needed to be more skeptical about what they read, with the massive influx of news-blogs giving little distinction between rumor and fact.
"We're not in the business of reporting news, but as far as the review process goes, we're being very open about a review being that person's perspective. We don't use fancy math to come to our reviews, we just go with what the reviewer feels the game merits. I think when a review has to represent an entire organization's perspective on a game, that's where you can run into trouble. Also, for what it's worth, I've never considered myself a 'game journalist.' I think they exist, but I'm a reviewer and a commentator more than anything."
After last year's detour to Santa Monica, E3 returned this year to its traditional home at the L.A. Convention Center. But the more things stay the same, the more they change, as they say (if they're a bit confused). Despite the return to the old location, much of this year's E3 had an empty, ghost town feeling when compared to E3s past. The general lack of participating developers and publishers, combined with the strict, invite-only attendee list combined to make a show that seemed incredibly small in the incredibly large convention center. To see just how small, check out our "E3, then and now" gallery, which compare scenes from previous E3s to similar scenes from this year's show.
The first thing we noticed when we stepped into the Showcase Pavillion at this year's E3: This is really quite small. The second thing we noticed: Everyone seems to be dancing! Everywhere we looked, there seemed to be someone (usually with a Wii Remote/Nunchuk in hand) waggling about to some vary hard-to-hear music. But don't just take our word or it. Check out our video montage of just some of the dancing fools on this year's show floor. See if you can guess which dancers are random attendees and which ones are PR people who've been assigned to pretend to be interested in dancing these same steps ALL DAMN DAY. Fun!
At last year's E3, the place to go to try out games without a behind-closed doors appointment was the "Summit Sotware Showcase" in the relatively tiny Barker Hangar. This year, the place to browse was the similarly small "Showcase Pavillion" in the similarly small L.A. Convention Center's Concourse Hall. Thus, we decided to reprise last year's double-time video trip through the Barker Hangar with a similar, double-time video trip through this year's version of the showloor, embedded below. Can you spot your favorite company/game? Find out after the jump.
We've heard rumblings that something big might be announced at this post-press conference event, but it's far from a sure thing. Keep it here.
5:44 PM PDT There are roughly 100 members of the press gathered on the green plush seats of the L.A. Convention Center's Theater 411. No music in the background this time, just the low chatter of dozens and dozens of journalists.
5:49 A few latecomers are straggling in, but it looks like it will be far from a capacity crowd. About half the seats are empty.
5:54 The lack of background music is a little disturbing. We find ourselves humming Bill Joel's "No Man's Land" under our breaths for no apparent reason ...
"I do not think Pong, bless its little square boxes, was ever featured in Rolling Stone." - ESA CEO Mike Gallagher highlights the growing public acceptance of games at his E3 "State of the Industry" keynote. While he might be right, the venerable pop culture magazine did do a story about SpaceWar way back in 1972.
"We're in a new era of acceptance for video and computer games."
So did ESA CEO Mike Gallagher kick off his "State of the Industry" E3 keynote speech this afternoon. "When we look back, we'll see now is the time that our industry became an accepted part of our cultural landscape," he added.
The signs of this change are all around us, according to Gallagher, such as the prominent participation of Texas Governor Rick Perry in another keynote speech this morning. "In my predecessor's time, we were fighting government officials, not working with them," he said. While there are still problems with the game industry's image, he said, projects like Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's planned civics education game show that "those who write about the industry in narrow demographic terms are behind the times."
"There are fascinating things going on in your industry that not enough Americans, not enough people around the world, know about. You're in a constant state of evolution -- and yes for all you bloggers out there, I actually used the E-word there." -Texas Governor Rick Perry makes an oblique reference to his more controversial associations at his E3 keynote speech this morning.
If we had to summarize thismorning's E keynote speech by Texas Governor Rick Perry in three words, it would be "Texas is awesome." If we had a few more words, we'd say "Texas is awesome, and so is the game industry."
After a short introductory video featuring a few Texan developers (including Warren Spector), Perry launched into a laundry list of the business virtues for the Lone Star state, including a legal system low on frivolous lawsuits, an income-tax free revenue structure that "lets workers keep their wages" and a "sensible regulatory environment," whatever that means. Texas also has more Fortune 500 companies than any other state, making it an economic powerhouse.
"The weather is hot, the barbecue is hot, the music is hot, and we want to see the game industry even hotter," Perry said, gushing about the 2,800 new jobs created by 22 Texas game development companies (the third highest concentration in America, but Perry is "gunning for No. 1"). The governor lost us a bit when he said the industry average salary of $63,000 a year "may seem like pocket change to those of you here from California or Washington," Personally, we'd love to make that kind of scratch.
Reading about people playing Guitar Hero World Tour is one thing, but seeing it in action is quite another. We've chopped up and condensed the extremely lengthy World Tour demonstration contained in Activision's non-E3 press conference into the most important, informative and interesting bits for the below embedded videos. We've even included a full, six minute performance of Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher," performed by the developers themselves. Rock on!
Schlumpy, balding guy: Are you a frag doll? Cute red head: *nods* Schlumpy balding guy: Cool ... I'm not. *small chuckle* Frag doll: ... - A connection is made in the audience before the start of the UbiSoft press conference
It feels like we just left, but we're back again in LACC room 403 to bring you the latest announcements from Capcom as they happen. Keep it here.
4:55 PM Pacific The press flows in amid a ridiculously loud and thumping, yet low-key bass beat. The seating area doesn't seem nearly as crowded as the UbiSoft conference. Must be all those journalists covering the tween girl market ...
4:57 Diving right in with Lost Planet, the movie. Seems the event is going to be focused on this new theatrical project. Cause who cares about the games, really...
5:00 A trailer of cut scenes and action shots form the game commences, complete with Metal Gear Solid style sweeping music and giant robot footfalls. Lots of explosions ... you know the drill if you've played the game.
5:01 Arad Productions Chairman Avi Arad, Screenwriter David Hayter, Ari Arad, Head of R&D for Capcom Keaiji Inafune, Capcom CEO Haruhito Sukamoto, Seaside CEO Steven Paul and Tetsu Fujimora all come out and take their place at the table.
We're sitting in the filled-to-capacity room 403 of the L.A Convention Center, ready to blog all the announcements from Ubisoft as they happen. Keep it here.
5:35 PM EST They're carting in extra chairs to handle the overflowing line of people still trying to get in. There have to be over 400 people here.
5:40 Still packing 'em in like sardines. Some nondescript soft rock plays in the background.
"The Who recently licensed downloadable tracks for the video game Rock Band. Daltrey said he tried it and got bored quickly. He laments the way technology has shifted how people regularly interact with music, saying the scrapping of long-play records signaled the death of the music industry." (from CNN)
Roger Daltrey is 150 years old. (not from CNN; our estimate)
