Anyone else unimpressed with E3 2018?

[Duckman]

I have been watching and there was very little that impressed me.

First, some publishers didn't announce a title that didn't have a number at the end.  Is it that difficult to come up with and market a new property these days?  Certainly doesn't help that I don't like the first-person shooter interface or the "look at all our free content provided by other players" PvP model which is so prevalent these days.

Second, what is it with all these cinematic trailers with zero information?  I mean, seriously...  Did anyone have any doubt what the setting for Fallout 76 was going to be?  Did that trailer tell you anything that you didn't already know about a Fallout title (unless it makes a great deal of difference to you that you would be playing in fictionalized virtual West Virginia instead of Vegas or DC).  The list of titles which assume that you know everything about them based on prior title is long and to be honest it is not helpful since if you look to Fallout and Fallout 2 as an example of the Fallout franchise it is something very different now.  Also, as franchises get diversified into multiple genres, saying "this is a Fallout game" means less than ever before.  I was teasing someone that we could not even tell if the original Fallout 76 teaser was a PC game or a mobile app follow-up to Fallout Shelter.  When that is the case, your teaser is useless except to generate hype and uninformed hype is a sure way to turn me off any product.

Third, what is with the "we're not going to release any information, we're going to let the fanbois spread our information for us" move?  I get that this is the generation of social media and it's cheap advertising but let me explain something...  I have a friend who loves superhero movies.  He's never had anything critical to say about a superhero movie.  He even raves about bad DC titles.  This is exactly the kind of fanboi that the gaming industry is getting to represent them...  And I never ask Garry what he thought of a superhero movie because he can't give me any valuable information.  He can't be critical of anything that is broken or doesn't work.  His feedback on those things is useless to me.

 

Yes, there were titles I am interested in but other than a name I have nothing useful about them from E3.

Cyberpunk 2077 - Love the setting, don't have the first indication what gameplay will actually be like.

Starfield - Again, love the genre...  At this point we don't have any information about it though so we might assume it is like Elder Scrolls in space...  Or not.

Satisfactory - Is this Factorio meets Ark?  Interesting concept.  Also maybe totally off base, so who knows?

[Yarbicus]

The trailer for The Last of Us 2 was mostly gameplay (and it looks so good I might actually buy a PS for it) but otherwise you are right on the money.

[Guest]

Regarding trailers with little information:

There's a lot of negative press if a Game fails to meet the "promises" it made their fans. If you don't make any promises, you aren't at fault for failing to meet them.

Could also have to do with making international games and trailers that don't require translation.

 

[VonRuger]

I was also unimpressed. I'm hoping for something to surprise me still.

[Duckman]

11 hours ago, paxmiles said:

Regarding trailers with little information:

There's a lot of negative press if a Game fails to meet the "promises" it made their fans. If you don't make any promises, you aren't at fault for failing to meet them.

Could also have to do with making international games and trailers that don't require translation.

There's a difference between making promises and providing information.  "Starfield" was a teaser...  We can only assume that it is Elder Scrolls in space because of the developer.  How hard is it to say "A single-player sandbox" on that trailer?  And what the heck is Satisfactory?  I guess if you don't own license you cannot say Factorio set in a first-person open-world survival setting but you could say a factory building experience set in that environment.

These projects were sold to a development shop with a pitch.  If nothing else, you could pull the tagline from the pitch.  As more and more of the game is done you could add detail if you wanted to but that isn't really necessary.  If I say "a massively multiplayer first person shooter experience" then people know what to expect even if the company has said nothing about details, weapons, balance, etc.

But here's the deal...  If people don't know your product line, putting up a name means very little.  If I just put up a banner that says "Nerma" nobody knows what it is (a cigarette brand from a century ago).  On the other hand, if you have name recognition (I am looking at you, Fallout) all you have to do is put the appropriate tags in your description.  I don't smoke and I know what Lucky Strike menthol 100s would be and I don't need a 60 second spot of someone smoking a cigarette.  Nor does it even help me to see 60 seconds of someone smoking a cigarette to figure out that what he is smoking is a menthol 100 unless someone actually says that it is a menthol 100 because the important things about the product are not visual.

Now that we have gotten to the point that everything has cinematic cuts in it, showing me cinematics means nothing.  It tells me nothing about gameplay, nothing about your engine, not even anything about the graphics quality in your engine during gameplay...

[Guest]

Oh, I agree, unreasonable, but I think that is the reason: don't want to make any promises and don't want to have to make multiple versions for international sales.