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View Full Version : E3 2015: The Best One Ever!



IMPress Polly
06-27-2015, 08:06 AM
For those who don't know, E3 (shorthand for Electronic Entertainment Expo) is the video game industry's main annual trade show, wherein developers and publishers preview large quantities of new games and game-related products. Although it's not open to the public, the gaming community has always followed these events in monthly gaming publications and today are able to watch the proceedings live online, so we always know what the contents are. Anyway, I'm going to make the audacious proposal that this was the best E3 of all time for two reasons:

1) The focus was on games.

E3 hasn't been too exciting in recent years despite revolving around the hype surrounding the release of an array of new game systems. That's because the makers of these systems have tended to promote them as everything other than machines on which to play video games. It's been very much about new ways in which you can use game machines to watch TV and movies and so forth. As thrilling as that is (:rollseyes:), I've definitely missed the days of these events zeroing in on new innovations that will impact the way people, you know, play video games in the future. That's what made the E3s of 2004, 2006, and 2009, for example, so much more exciting than the others since then: E3 2004 saw Nintendo unveil touch-screen play. E3 2006 saw Nintendo unveil standardized motion controls. E3 2009 saw Microsoft unveil controller-free play via their new Kinect device. These developments all had major implications for the quantity of people who were subsequently interested in playing video games (attracting new demographic groups to the medicum, like girls and women, older people, etc.) and also for how millions would often opt to play. This year's E3 saw a comparable excitement around new virtual reality technology, which many of the games previewed will utilize. The new form of virtual reality technology I'm talking about is what I've elsewhere described as "the leap to 4D", as it enables people to interact with video games on an entirely different level of immersion than we've seen before, with not only better visuals but also different control options and so forth. Virtual reality excitement was definitely palpable. Just as importantly though, there was simply no time dedicated to discussions of things other than video games and technologies improving the way we play. Games themselves took center stage and it made a big difference! I kid you not when I say that there were more games previewed at this E3 that I'm interested in getting than at any previous! I may even have to put my plans to continue adding to my '80s game library on hold and cancel some other significant expenditures in order to be able to afford all the new games I'm wanting now, and that's saying something because I always set aside a considerable game budget every month and save up too! That and...

2) Big strides were made in inclusiveness.

Let's face it: in terms of the politics of games, 2014 was the year that discussions of game censorship prospects subsided in favor of dialogue around gender politics, and not in a good way. I kid you not when I say that the last year has been the hands-down most disheartening one ever for me when it comes to attitudes I've seen on display from a community that I've only ever wanted admission to. In particular, the rise of the GamerGate movement last August dramatically impacted the whole tone of conversations around gaming both within the community and outside of it, with the gaming community and culture earning a reputation for high-level misogyny after several women involved in the field of games and games criticism were forced out, forced to flee their homes, that sort of thing, by organized campaigns of harassment and intimidation. In an atmosphere wherein gamers were insisting that I leave "their" spaces for defending these women and wherein the rest of society was scoffing at the hobby itself because of its manifestly toxic and exclusionary culture, as if to agree that I should abandon it, there was actually a period between August and October when I seriously considered following everyone's advice that I abandon one of my all-time favorite hobbies, as you may recall. That hurt. This may sound dorky, but games have been such an important part of my life over the decades that it felt like I was losing a close friend because that friend hated me now. While the gaming community has never exactly been known for its feminist outlook, I've never seen anything like the events of the last year in my entire life, ever. That's why I'm so glad the gaming scene's Dark Ages are now finally over! GamerGate has largely melted away in recent weeks after finally being banned from their main hubs of operation, the unusually permissive social media services 4Chan and Reddit, as a hate group. That's saying something because those places don't themselves exactly have a reputation for their pro-feminist attitude or general restrictiveness. It takes some doing to get banned from places like these. The final nail in the coffin for the reactionary politics of this scene though -- the thing that will surely relegate this scene to the margins of the gaming community going forward -- was, to my great surprise, this year's E3.

Since the gaming business depends so much on these people's money, I didn't expect the industry to be bold at all in terms of responding to all this, but it was, and it didn't take any formal address of the issue to accomplish the feat either. Rather, the industry simply produced much of the results that the women's movement has been advocating, thus going to show through simple example which side of the argument they've opted to side with. Namely, for the first time ever, fully the majority of games previewed at E3 will either allow players to use female avatar or oblige them too. Specifically, the breakdown was this: out of 76 titles shown at press conferences...

35 allow the player to choose either a male or female character in the game's main mode of play,
24 oblige the player to use a male character,
10 do not have playable characters, and...
7 oblige the player to use a female character.

Source (http://feministfrequency.com/2015/06/22/gender-breakdown-of-games-showcased-at-e3-2015/)

(We arrive at a majority by combining the first and last statistics.)

This was the first year in which the "games obliging the player to use a male character" category was not the largest one. While, as the people at Feminist Frequency have pointed out, there's still a long way to go before full gender parity in game representation is reached (see the link above), I'm in a mood to celebrate because this is the biggest leap in that direction we've yet seen the industry take! It goes to show that the hatred and hostility we've seen on the part of many gamers over the last year or so has produced the opposite of its intended result. I revel in the irony. :smiley: Seriously though, making this much change all at once was a real commercial risk on the part of the industry because the haters compose such a large percentage of their customer base. It goes to show that they're committed to expanding that customer base, including in the area of mainstream, big-budget productions and established, prominent franchises ranging from Call of Duty to Fallout to Assassin's Creed to FIFA to Dishonored and far beyond. Even if simply adding the option to use a female avatar seems like a small change to you, bear in mind that 60% of high school girls, when surveyed on the subject, said that they preferred to use a female character when playing video games. The fact that the casual gaming scene regularly affords female players that option while the core gaming scene does not (or hasn't up until now anyway!) then explains a lot about why there are so many more girls and women are involved in the gaming periphery rather than in the core scene of retail games. What I'm saying is that this is the kind of big change on the industry's part that will, if sustained, significantly increase the number of women you see shopping at Game Stop and other video game retailers, the number of women you see in mainstream gaming communities online, etc., in the coming years. It will draw lots more women off the sidelines and into the mainstream of the gaming culture for the first time, which will itself tend to break down many gender prejudices because of how different (how much more adventure-oriented and so forth) the mainstream gaming culture and community tends to be. And additionally, the more female players there are in gaming communities, the less you're going to see epidemic problems like sexual harassment tolerated thereon. Inclusive gaming spaces will improve the whole tone of the gaming scene, making it a less hostile and more inviting space to be.

Now true equity would mean an at least roughly equal number of stories about men and women being told in games. It would mean the second and fourth statistics above becoming roughly equal. There's benefit to the world of gaming in general, including for male players, in so doing as well. The female life experience is different from the male one in many ways and games that revolve around the stories of girls and women can thus, by their very existence, expand the overall range of stories that games can tell and offer more opportunities to learn about the experiences of people different from oneself, just as I've found that same merit to many male-centric games.

Okay now for some fun! With all of the above said, I think I'll share the five games previewed at this year's E3 that I'm most looking forward to playing. First the big-budget productions:

HORIZON: ZERO DAWN

A post-apocalyptic role-playing game about tribal life, hunting (robotic dinosaurs :grin:), and the delicate balance of nature from the creators of the Killzone franchise of all people and published by Sony, you can bet that this one will be a PlayStation 4 exclusive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkg5UVTsKCE

MIRROR'S EDGE: CATALYST

A science fiction action-adventure and platforming game that takes place in the first-person perspective, what I've seen of this game's story has a very dramatic and anti-corporate feel that really grabs me. It'll be available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and for Windows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsDX_LiJT7E

RECORE

Developed by the creators of the Metroid Prime franchise and published by Microsoft, yep this one will be an Xbox One exclusive, and one that further incentivizes me to get an Xbox One, as I've been planning to sometime this year! What you see in the video below is all I know about this game, but it's more than enough for me to want to try it out. It looks to be a rather emotional sci-if action-adventure game about the relationship between a young woman and her robotic animal companion whom is able to take control of different mechanical bodies if one is destroyed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtfY27pYri0

And now for the indy games I'm most looking forward to. I love indies! I really do. It's a less commercial scene and, accordingly, that's where so much of the real risk-taking and creativity is concentrated, as is the case in other artistic mediums (like film) as well. They regularly prove that games don't need big budgets or necessarily "adult themes" or anything like that to be truly great and artistically fantastic! I just wish these efforts were more recognized and rewarded. Many of the most original games that come out are indy titles and that's certainly true of the following two:

BEYOND EYES

This is actually the game I'm most looking forward to. It's designed to simulate what it's like to live with blindness as you go on a journey to find your cat. The game takes place in the third-person perspective, but most parts of the environments are either too bright or too dark to see, so the player must hone their listening skills, as sound plays a big role in letting the player know what's ahead. Once you touch certain objects, they'll be highlighted, as to simulate remembrance of their location. You say you're looking for an original and unique gaming experience, and one that's socially useful? Here it is! Due out this summer, this one is almost upon us already! I'll definitely be getting it. It'll be available on multiple platforms including Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Windows, Linux, and OS X.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHfTAnA47CE

And finally...

FIREWATCH

This story-driven exploration game modeled loosely on the play structure of Gone Home takes place in the aftermath of the Yellowstone fires of 1988 wherein a volunteer fire lookout (your player character) must uncover clues about mysterious occurrences in the area related to the ransacking of his tower while out on a routine patrol. His only available form of communication is a walkie talkie that connects him to his supervisor Delilah, and player choices concerning their exchanges with her influence the tone of their relationship over the course of the game. This one's due out later this year for the PlayStation 4 and computer (Windows, Linux, and OS X). Looks pretty interesting to me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGfd1MwL-T4