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General: Post-E3 Thoughts
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com's Richard Aihoshi talks about the art of covering E3 and the show that he would most like to attend given the opportunity.
Richard Aihoshi's latest column serves up his observations after this year's edition, and also looks ahead to a show with a much stronger F2P focus, ChinaJoy.
After attending about nine or 10 in a row, I've haven't been to the past couple of E3s, which means I wasn't in Los Angeles last week for the 2010 edition. Overall, my reaction this time was pretty much the same as last year, when I found that the one thing I truly missed was the opportunity the show provides to see and speak with a lot of bright, interesting, cool people in the industry.
How about the event itself? Well, yes, I missed it too - but definitely to a lesser extent.
I was always fortunate in not having to cover past E3s like many writers who are obliged to split their time between seeing game presentations and trying to write them up as quickly as possible, most often as show reports and/or mini-previews. I opted not to do those, which let me take twice as many meetings at the cost of not putting up any articles until the week after. So, I got the chance to see and learn more, but my coverage generated fewer page views than it would have had I approached the show in the "standard" manner.
Read Post-E3 Thoughts.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I never understood the lie that is the name "free-to-play" as it is not free. You will have to spend real money on normal in-game items like more inventory space and mounts. Sure, you can download and install and create a character for no cost at all, but to actually PLAY is not free, not for more than a week. I prefer the name "subless" aka subscription-less.
Calling games "free-to-play" and saying they are "100% free to play" is trickery. It's just a free trial, in essence. They are, in fact, subscription-less games. Think about it, what cash shop offers items for free? You can usually grind for months to maybe earn enough in-game coin to buy cash shop currency, but the "free-to-play" games you are writing about and are advertised all over this website are all Asian grinders. How about some fun, some worthy content, some good monster AI, and some reason to play the game, instead of being forced to enslave and prostitute yourself to the game to get ahead "for free?"
Just something to think about, Mr. Aihoshi. Good articles, though.
MMORPG -- Where's the RP?
Much better than last weeks trollfest that you wrote, but still not much of a point to the rambling other than to point out that E3 isnt massive on the F2P radar and that you couldnt go, boo hoo.
I would love to sign up for the job, that would send me somewhere for free. I would be glad to give my 2 cents worth on what I saw.
I hope he can find his dream job, since obvously covering e3 was not a high priority. Thats kind of like saying I know its there, I just dont want to be involved, send me to china instead. Must be nice to be able to pick what venues you want to cover, and what venues you don't.
However what do I know about covering events like that.
Too much time wittering about why you weren't there, nothing of any great interest to us gamers, a comparative retrospective about E3 vs GSTAR would have been worth the read.
I think a number of people are missing the point. The point of the article is to talk about the way that most outlets cover events like E3, and to say that he does it differently, for better or worse. The article highlights the reason that we all tend to just get little bite sized chunks of information out of E3 rather than great in-depth articles.
Speaking as someone who has covered a number of E3s, I can tell you that is one of my greatest frustrations as well. You're constantly missing something because you have to spend time churning out articles as quickly as possible in a way that insures that neither the show itself, nor the articles you're writing, are getting your full attention.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
I didn't miss the point at all, it's not a hard stretch to imagine the life of a journo at these events, which is the problem for this piece. I just don't think it made for an interesting article, blog piece maybe. It read to me as a journo wittering about journo stuff.
I think there is enough room for both styles of expo cover, Mr Aihoshi's way is something I would favour, it may not be feeding the 'want it now' brigade but it would offer the ability to capture something more unique from the show.
Mentioning GSTAR and not offering any insight was a tease, I'm intrigued.
'Free' is a marketting term. It is used to imply that you get something for nothing... but you never do. There is always a catch, for example:
Free (with purchase of additional item)
(Buy one) Get One Free
Free (Trial)
Free (for limited time)
Free (with limited usability)
Free (after rebate)
etc. (you get the picture).
This has been ongoing for decades, and has been a major part of all marketing for the US (not certain of other regions) and has been used by all major industries, from automotie to retail to high tech.
F2P is just another word for limted trial. It just works better for marketting...
The thing is you don't "have" to pay.
I have played several f2p games and for "just playing" I never spent a dime with the exception of ddo where I purchased a special class. Of course I might not level quite as fast as someone accessing store bougth buff pots or instant ports back to town but you can forgo the mount. You can forgo the storage space if you are not going to be a mad crafter.
I'm sure there must be f2p games that wont' allow you to level if you don't buy a certain thing that removes a level barrier but if players would stop thinking they have to keep up with the Joneses, there are free to play games where you don't have to spend anything. I didn't spend money in Archlord, spend a small amount for that class in DDO, didn't spend money in Perfect World. I just played and enjoyed myself.
However, the people who don't spend any money are not the target audience for a "f2p" game.
The people who dont spend money are the players who help flesh out hte world, let it seem populated, group with others when they are asking for groups, etc.
It's the players who don't mind dipping into their wallets to make life a bit easier who are the target audience.
but if you can just play for the sake of playing I don't see any reason to ever pay a dime other than the example I give above. And even that, if it exists is a one time charge that over the course of months is negligible.
Of course that does go off topic a bit but it bears being said.
As far as the article, I'd hate to cover a game conference for the exact reason he said. People on the outside think it's all fun and games, but like anything in life, anything you do as a job does become a "job" at some point.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The problem is not covering.
The problem is HAVING to look at E3 as shards of fallen glass mosaic, instead of being able to talk about THE BIG PICTURE it was.
You cover one thing, you miss out(or get a biased opinion on) another. Ask ~10 different journalists about E3 and you will get stories as if its ten entirely different events.
E3 coverup(especially on mmorpg.com) has been SERIOUSLY subjective, with constant hype of certain games(*cough*tor*cough) and total neglect of other. That's the problem. None of websites give you THE BIG picture, only the shards after it was broken.
# A GRIM, ODD, ARCANE SKY
# ANY GOD, I MARK SACRED
# A MASKED CRY ADORING
# A DREAMY, SICK DRAGON
I agree, Free to play is really Free to play, the basic game they offer, now if you want fry's with that order it will cost you, thats all it is marketing, nothing more, it's not a lie, or some grand conspiracy, I think we all know nothing in life is really free,..:)
How hard can it be to get 2 or 3 journos for the same publication to cover E3 in more depth by splitting up your appointments for presesntations allowing you more time to see the presentations and write more in depth articles about each, then bring it all together and give an overall opinion of the big picture.
As for this particular article, it strikes me as whinging about an event you didn't attend becaue your too principled to churn out the same old guff year after year as most others doing it.
See previous paragraph.
I was just thinking the same thing you say in your first paragraph. With all the people who go to E3 it seems kind of a waste for any organization to send more than one person to cover the same material. On the other hand, though, Richard did say that they only allot you a small chunk of time to cover a specific game so maybe having more time to devote to one particular game or another would be a waste.
I totally disagree with your second point, and that same point from many others, as I have always disliked E3 for the same reasons Richard put down in his article. Everyone seems to make such a big deal about it but in the end, its like a whole weekend of baseball went by and all I get is the box scores. None of the real meat of the whole experience ever makes it through. It seems like 100 people write the same brief articles containing nearly the exact same info.
As to the F2P argument above, I have played Jade Dynasty, Perfect World and DDO to the end game material and never once spent any money on the item shop. I did sub to DDO for one month after hitting max level and when the free perks I was promised never came through I canceled my account and uninstalled completely. Jade Dynasty, so far, has been pretty fun in as far as the quest content goes. Pretty good story lines so far and it definitely hasn't cost me one cent.
I have played 10+ mmos including Perfect World. The mmos do differ from eachother as far as the cash shop goes. Games like Nostale will sale items that aren't overpowered but will give the player a small advantage while a game like Perfect World will give you more of an advantage with the more money you spend. Perfect World was a very good mmo for its first year but now it is very unappealing to anyone who is looking for PvP as it will be very time consuming and costly to reach the point where you can compete with the high level cashshoppers. But I think most of the ftp mmos are only putting small advantages in the cash shop (this is from personal experience) and very few are are breaking thier own game by putting overpowered items in it. I'm pretty sure most of you that say ftp is a lie haven't gave any of them a real chance. I know some are elitist and want to be the top player and to do that in a lot of ftp games you have to use the cash shop at least a little bit. But if you don't you can still be effective in pvp and pve but you probably wont be the #1 guy out there. If you don't mind the fact that the people who support the company and use the cash shop will have an advantage over you then you can really enjoy the vast amount of mmos out there for free.
As for the trivia question I have no idea. Also it is apparent that most articles about any games shown at E3 are very similar when compared to each other. There is no helping it.
No thanks I did not "miss the point" infact for me to miss the point would imply that there was one in the writing in the first place.
As per last week its another font of uselessness with slightly less insulting of the reader (though I am glad that you as "managing editor" put that right and added in enough for this week).
What we as readers want is comparisons, of the F2P market and the P2P one, we want analytical breakdowns of the offerings so that we can see a BALANCED and NEUTRAL View point which the writer can then quantify with opinion. This is the heart of good journalisim and reporting. Sadly this article (and your good self) both really do miss the point (see what I did there?).
If you provided a better quality of reporting you might find a better quality of debate and a more willing and engageable community.
However sadly it seems the art of community engagement and management is gone, Provoking debate does not mean provoking your reader it means offering them balanced facts from both sides of an article and playing devils advocate with your own view point. Then Summerising with your opinion and throwing it out there to a community to discuss agree and disagree, it does not mean (as per these columns) Varying between insulting the reader directly, questioning their intellect or any other "emperors new clothes" journalistic techniques.
By emperors new clothes I mean the oft adoped here "Oh you didnt understand, its ok that you missed the point, you are clearly not as clever as me, when you get the point and agree come back and we will talk as intellectual equals".
If a number of people are missing the point, then it is the article that took a wrong turn, not all the readers. You took two paragraphs to say what he supposedly meant to say without sounding like your general opinion was meh, E3, not worth my time, too good for me attitude.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
I think it is very interesting to evaluate all E3 articles through a "they saw the game for 15 minutes" filter. I take a critical view of all info coming out of E3 anyway, but that kind of information helps reinforce that view.
If he didn't go to E3, then there is no reason for Aihoshi to even bother writing anything about it. We don't give a crap about "why" he didn't go, or what "he thinks" of the event. If he's going to give nothing but his "opinions" like these last two articles ( I'm honestly surprised he's still here after last week's, but oh well ) with no substance for us gamers who are here on a gaming site to learn about new upcoming games as well as existing ones, then please just make him a regular member and give him a blog space like the rest of us and find someone that can give us real info and let them earn a paycheck.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Well I do agree the china event is going to be the up and coming thing and it will over shadow E3 eventually.
E3 is more about console games than it is about MMO's. The MMO's are kind of just thrown in there and let's face it, visiting a booth will just let you see what the developers want you to see. A small scenario they have debugged. Hard to understand what the game will offer from an experience like that when it comes to a MMO. So yeah, you can get somewhat of a feel for the game and that is about it.
While it is great that you dont have to cover E3, or you would prefer to go to China. The reason i come here IS for some small tid bit that i may not have gotten before.
I realise that all the reporters are getting the same speach over and over and over again, so the realality is that I could go to most any site to get the information. I choose to come here to get it. Not a report on how you dont do e3
blizz has the right idea making their own con. lets ppl focus on more things.
It sucks being a hardcore player at heart but a casual player in availability. ~NightCloak
Wow, such a response to my initial (first) post in this topic. I, of course, understand the aspect of marketing that is the word "free" in F2P. I even said how you literally can play for free but you will become a slave to the game in order to gain enough in-game coin to buy cash shop currency from other players. The main point was that "free-to-play" is actually "pay-to-play" stressing the word PLAY. Just to login isn't playing. heh
Great replies from everyone, even the ones replying as if I were an imbecile and can't understand standard marketing ploys. I salute you all for thinking for yourselves.
Heck, I figured if I posted something worth discussing, this "article" by Aihoshi wouldn't be so ignored. It is the 'Free Zone' so I kept the comments about F2P. Yo Aihoshi, I didn't go to E3 or have to file any reports about E3 either. So what?
MMORPG -- Where's the RP?
"Understandably, there was never any real chance of any publication paying me to work E3 the way I used to, and I'm too set in my ways to change."
I hope you arren't being paid for writig that kind of crapticles either...