One concept discussed with Matt here at Cinelinx was the simple question, why did we need a digital E3 when companies did just fine on their own last year? Day 3 of E3 makes it clear that a digital E3 is pretty pointless.
While yesterday brought some excitement to E3 with Square Enix and Microsoft, todays showings were entirely pointless and not needed. At all. Nobody really had anything to show off, and once again non-E3 announcements were outshining E3 itself. It took until 12PM, nearly half the day, for E3 to even show any worthwhile games in the indie showcase. All the presentations leading up to it had none.
The only real saving grace of today was Limited Run Games which wasn’t even an “official” E3 presentation showing off 30 physical titles in a rather entertaining presentation, and Razer which actually had a keynote style presentation showing off new gaming hardware.
As Jordan here at Cinelinx stated, today is a day when you miss companies that backed out like Sony, EA, and Activision. Today was a filler day and E3 really had nothing to put into the slots, so we got a bunch of random non-gaming companies trying to cash in on video gamers, and some half thought out presentations nobody will remember.
But lets make one thing clear, do not let your kids play Blankos.
For some reason the “Official” E3 presenters were really hyping up the Mythical presentation, perhaps because it was the only real game presentation in the morning. Yet right after the presentation they kind of blanked on it (pun intended) because the entire speal was a scam.
I don’t even know how to put this kindly. Mythical games created a game called “Blankos” which are basically low res Funko Pops in a digital world, and they consistently tried to tell you these blankos were some form of NFT. I’d try to explain what an NFT is, but even that is complicated. However what Blankos turns out to be is a micro transaction filled “game” that I have no real idea about. The entire presentation was about how you can buy this, buy that, sell this, transfer that. At no point did they step back and say “here is what the core game is, and why you wont spend money.” Why? Because you will be spending money….
I was suckered into Blankos initially because it looks like a blend of chaos from Fall Guys mixed with the ideas of Roblox. At the end of the day it is 100% targeted at kids and it’s scary! At no point during the presentation did they mention what barriers are being put in place to prevent children from spending money on random things, in fact the game looks like it desperately needs these “NFT” micro-transactions to even function. The only thing mentioned was how easy it was to add money or crypto wallets to the game and purchase items. Even while scrolling their in-game store there was no method of protection from children just blowing your entire crypto wallet on a game, and perhaps that’s the goal?
I did my best to ignore it until they started scrolling past things you could buy. How about $80 dollar characters, $20 dollar cosmetic items, and pretty much everything stock being $10. Again they failed to mention how a player could “earn” said items because they never talked about actually playing the game. Oh, but Deadmouse was there to once again cash in on a game, kids sure will love that! It’s a joke, stop it.
Intellivision Actually Impressed
When I saw Intellivision on the line up I simply thought whatever. Then as I was watching what they did I was actually somewhat impressed. I thought it would just be another poor attempt at a retro console that had no real benefit to it, you know like those Sega Genesis boxes we see at Target. Yet Intellivision actually put some thought into this and I’m curious where it will go.
Their revamped games looked rather awesome, and the controller was extremely neat. They have a small niche market here, but I truly wanted to check it out after that showing.
Capcom you will save us right? Right?
All day we had one hope of one real game company, Capcom, surprising us and doing something exciting. We were wrong. Capcom was at least nice enough to tell us exactly what they were going to talk about before the event, and then did just that. No surprised reveals, nothing special, and no real information on Resident Evil Village DLC. I’m not too mad since they were honest about it at least, but just like I said before…. Just because you can be at E3 doesn’t mean you should. You’re allowed to skip it.
Razer and Limited Run
Razer honestly had the most interesting show of the day showcasing a super sleek and powerful gaming laptop, an amazing gaming screen, and a tiny charger. They may be releasing their Project Hazel mask a bit late, but even that got some final details and a release date. However a super thin laptop with the latest graphis cards for around 2k dollars had me super hype. Their presentation was authentic E3 style and it brought some “normal” to an otherwise digital event.
Limited Run Games also did a stellar job with a quick cut presentation that showed personality. I enjoyed it very much, and while they were not showing new games I at least was laughing and having a good time. A total change up from the snoozefest morning we had today with several other presenters.
