I am going to E3 next week. I am way excited to get the hell out of Dodge for a bit, chill with some new/old friends, and just be immersed in videogame hype.
I hate hype, as a rule, and, as Wifey says, E3 is nothing but. However, there's something about E3 that I've always liked: Concentrated Geekdom.
The thing I love best about E3 is that it acts as a magnet for geeks of all sizes, shapes, and colors. They are all united under a single flag of electronic entertainment love. They LOVE videogames. They play them. They argue vehemently about which character in Street Fighter was the best. They debate the pros and cons of MMORPGs against each other. And, in short, this utter love of videogames is all they have in common. It's the uniting force.
It's the same reason I love going to Madison Square Garden for the Rangers games. When you're there, some 18,000 people all LOVE being there. You can debate whether they ALL do...but the ones that do certainly make it sound like everyone there does. It's a huge united love for something that you can belong to and it makes it all right that you do. And trust me, Rangers fans need that support.
But anyway, all these people gather together for a week-long spectacle of vaporware and the hope of getting a glimpse of something new, an inside scoop, a free demo, the name of someone to e-mail and chat with...ANYTHING. And for that week, it's OK to be a videogame junkie/geek.
Oh, and there are E3 Booth Babes. Goes without saying.