I had a good laugh today when I read on gamasutra that top publisher executives are calling for a change to E3.

Wasn't it just a few years ago that top publisher executives caused E3 to be torn apart?

Admittedly, none of the gentlemen (all of whom I have great respect for) quoted in the gamasutra piece were the ones calling for a change to the original format. The E3 form that we had all grown to love and hate had gotten completely out of control, more about the parties and one-upsmanship than the games themselves. For the companies that needed to pay for huge booths and parties in order to get attention in the arms race of the show it was a case of slowly diminishing returns year on year. I was involved in the Sony E3 booth prep in varying ways over my five years at SCEA, and had an increasing role during the PS3 launch era, and I can definitely attest to the incredible costs and pressures of putting together a good show. Many good people got many gray hairs. (See a video of the E3 2006 floor on YouTube.)

But in the past few years, E3 has just been an embarrassing mess. Each year so many people ask me "are you going to the show?" And my answer is "why bother?" Most of the major publishers have launched their own dedicated events, where they can highlight their products to the media without needing to fight with the distraction of a million other booths and games screaming at 100 decibels. In the E3 that we now remember somewhat fondly, only the huge booths of the major publishers and console manufacturers got much attention. With the current format, at least now smaller publishers are able to get more attention by holding their own events. And the cost is doubtless much less for everyone. It seems on first glance that the only people who lose in the current format are the gaming media, who are traveling all over the country to attend many more dedicated events - perhaps something that they enjoy, actually. (See a video of the E3 2008 floor by Wired's Chris Kohler.)

As an industry however, we have lost the annual attention of the non-gaming media that used to come from having such a blow-out event each year. What other conference is there in the U.S. that can inspire CNN, Fox News, and the New York Times to come spend days immersed in the world of videogames? Perhaps PAX is rising to that level now. But it isn't quite the same as having such a huge dedicated business event right in the middle of downtown Los Angeles.

For me, E3 was something that inspired me to work hard, pull lots of long hours, and not sleep enough for weeks or months beforehand. Many developers that I worked with hated having to bang out gorgeous milestones exclusively for the show. But the experience of the event was a glorious release, where the entire industry came together to try and impress one another (and of course the media), to celebrate the industry and having survived another year. During the week of E3 I would spend days literally running back and forth to non-stop meetings in the various halls, with my head down so that I wouldn't run into people I knew and become late for my next appointment. At night we would all hop from one event to another, catching up with friends and asking each other "what's good at the show?" so that we could make a beeline to see the next hot thing in the 30 minutes of free time we had the following day. It was a glorious kind of chaos. Thankfully for only three days.

So here we are. We've had a few years of the "why bother" E3. By ditching our old format, we put a halt to the arms race. We stopped the increasing number of "can I get a party ticket" meetings. But we've also lost some of that sense of the industry as a family, and the huge amount of media attention that we used to get at the conference. We've lost the ability to take a pause each year and measure the growth of the artform of videogames versus the year before.

Now that we've had the chance to take some deep breaths, to learn what we like and hate about the current format versus what we liked and hated about the original format, can we please start trying to swing the pendulum back the other direction again? It's time. Or, why don't we flush it altogether and start anew, or agree that we're going to have PAX or GDC (please god no, it is already too crazy) be our "new E3".

The half-E3 we have now is a sad reflection of its former glory, of the celebration of videogames that we once had. It's time. Let's reboot E3!

What makes the piece so refreshing is how blunt and realistic it is. Starting up a new game development company is not easy, especially when you're an independent developer doing work-for-hire for publishers. Building great games, and also building and growing a company, are two very difficult things. Now do it under time and budget constraints. GRIN is now 250 employees spread between four locations, so clearly they've had some success!

Be sure to visit Gamasutra to have a read of this enlightening piece.

But it is a bit small for all of our stuff! We have gotten the majority of it in there but so far the downstairs bathroom has been put to use as a storage room, and I have yet to move over the office books, desk, printer... I will put most of the books in storage for now, as I have a LOT of computer books (I bet you never would have guessed that huh :) )

Next step is to clean up my old loft and rent it out... if you know anyone looking to rent a beautiful 3-story loft in San Francisco near 9th and Mission, shoot me an email!

Wanted to post up here though that I'll be on SHIFT Radio this coming Wednesday. SHIFT Radio is a live audio show all about your digital life: gadgets, video games, technology, media... and hosted by Chris Melissinos, Chief Gaming Officer at Sun Microsystems. It should be a lot of fun! The episode is at 9am US-Pacific time, and has a call-in number for live questions! The program is available for listening afterward. Very cool stuff.

If you'd like to submit a question for consideration for the program, you can send email to shiftradio@sun.com. But take it easy on me! ;-)

But for now, I just want to say: what a great time it is to be a game developer! There are a zillion possible platforms to work on and it seems like companies are popping out of the woodwork all over the place to encourage us to work on theirs. For example, there's the $100 million application development fund for the iPhone, the $10 million developer challenge for Android, and the rumored $150 million fund for the Blackberry. Wow!

Just recently I've been reading about Intel's Game Demo Contest, the Dobbs Challenge, the Make Something Unreal Contest, and don't forget the XNA DreamBuildPlay challenge!

Don't get me wrong, it's also the worst time to be a developer, since there are so many platforms to develop on. :-) But if you're working hard to break into the game industry, there are a lot of competitions that may help you get a leg up. Of course the biggest one each year is the Independent Games Festival, which I am a huge fan of (and judge for). I'm already looking forward to next year's contest!

You know me, I'm a jaded and bitter old man. ;-) I worked at Nintendo for five years, I worked at Sony for five years, I worked at Ubisoft for awhile, I ran Game Developer magazine for a year and created the Game Programming Gems book series (book 7 recently launched!)... I'm passionate about independent game development and making games easier to create so that they can be used for communication and education. I've worked with a lot of people in the game industry, many development studios and game publishers in a variety of different capacities. So it is with great joy that I've met this group of people who are working together as a strong TEAM, and that are dedicated to creating UNIQUE and FUN experiences - on whatever platforms are appropriate.

GreenScreen is based in New York, New York, but I'll be staying in San Francisco, California for the foreseeable future. So if you're visiting SF, be sure to drop me an email and come by the office!

Thus it was with great delight that I stumbled across this gem earlier this morning. It's a youtube video of an episode of The Computer Chronicles featuring Steve Kitchen, Chris Crawford, Bill Budge, and Trip Hawkins. I love how the moderator goes on about the "amazing graphics", and Chris talks about how Excalibur is so huge - 66KB! Times have definitely changed but it's funny to see that we're all still talking about the same things. ;)

Unfortunately the embedding code for this video is blocked, so you'll have to click. Here it is:
The Computer Chronicles (1984)

I'd never sat down to write out my thoughts on this topic, and it was a good exercise. So I figured, heck, why not post my answers and see what other people think?

Do you think video game censorship should be stricter?
No... rating systems and the marketplace have proven to be adequate measures for regulating the content of the movie industry; why should it be any different with games?

Do you think that video games are more violent now than they were in the last three years? Do you think that they should be toned down?
I shouldn’t be making those kinds of decisions... if I think a game is too violent, I should just choose not to play it. For example, I was not a fan of the violence in “Manhunt”, but I don’t think that I should be able to tell other people not to play it. That would be like me banning other people from seeing “Reservoir Dogs” or “Pulp Fiction”. No one should have the authority to make rules like that, as far as I am concerned.

Do you think the rating system that is already in place is a good thing, or does it limit the potential market for video game developers?
I think the current rating system (ESRB in the U.S.) is great, but I wonder if it couldn’t be made simpler to understand by merging it with the current movie rating system. It seems that awareness of the game rating system is only about 65% (if I remember correctly?), but I think everyone understands the movie rating system. Unifying the two seems like a great move – and while we’re at it, why not unify it with the TV rating system? We could add some game-specific descriptors for interactive content, but leave the broad categories (NC-17, R, PG-13, etc) the same.

Do you think that violence in video games influences children and young adults to engage in violent behavior?
If it did, wouldn’t we have many many more violent kids and young adults? And even older adults? Heck, I’ve been playing videogames of all types since I was a kid, and I’m 38 now. And I’m basically a pacifist! So no, I don’t think that violent videogames influence kids to engage in violent behavior. Honestly I think it is more likely that a movie would, especially given some of the incredibly graphic scenes of violence in movies these days.

I do think that it is possible that particular kids who are already prone to violence could be attracted to violent games, so there is probably some correlational data there. But it is hard for me to see how pushing a button on a controller equates to violence.

Do you believe the banning of selling M games to minors will help lower the crime rate?
I don’t believe it will have any impact at all. Hasn’t the violent crime rate gone down during the past decade, during the period in which violence in games has gone up? If there was any correlation between violence in games and violent behavior, it seems like violent crime would have gone up. But it hasn’t. So why would you consider banning the sales of M games to minors?

I think that games should be held to the same standards as movies. The movie rating system is a guideline, and if a parent wants to show their child a movie with an older rating, shouldn’t they be able to? The same goes for games. The ultimate control should be in the hands of the parents, until the kids are old enough to make choices for themselves. The move to place legal restrictions behind the game rating system is a move toward more government control of raising our kids as a society, and a sign of parents giving up personal responsibility for their kids. Does that really make sense for our society as a whole? I think the U.S. was founded on the concept of personal freedom, and I believe in this case that it clearly points away from making the sale of M-rated games to minors illegal.

So tonight I stumbled back to my hotel room at just shy of 1am, and immediately turned on CNN. Laura and Jenna Bush were on Larry King (CNN), and they were talking up their new children's book. Within 30 seconds, Jenna says something like "boys these days are playing videogames instead of reading books or going outside, it's too bad".

Come on! Give me a break! When are we going to get past this "oh my god games are a waste of time" thing? Do people say that about movies? Reading books? I am so tired of hearing people bad-mouth games as a form of entertainment or education. When will we break through this?

Videogames are an important medium for communicating to today's young people. Perhaps Laura and Jenna should consider making a game for kids, instead!