Thursday, May 10, 2007

The Road to Santa Monica


E3 2007 is only two months away and as my buddy Dieter likes to say - I’m as happy as a little girl. The chance to see the hottest, yet-to-be-released titles, rub elbows with the worlds best gaming journalists, bow at the feet of Hideo Kojima and hear from each console maker how their latest creation will revolutionize the world of entertainment is too great of an opportunity to pass up.
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While going to a video game convention in southern California sounds better than Space Camp, just getting to E3 requires a lot of planning, hard work and money. Step one was getting an invitation to an event that is now media exclusive, pretty tough to come by for a guy who writes for a mid-sized paper so far from Cali. Thankfully Activision hooked me up, after a lot of begging and pleading.
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Step 2? Getting there. This sounds pretty simple but because I have to pay my own way, time and money become an issue. Time because I have to make arrangements for my kids, find someone to watch my dog Butters, bribe my brother to housesit and take time off of work. Money, because California is stupid expensive. I just booked my hotel last night and found out that the state of California has a 14% lodging tax! 14%!!! I can’t wait to pay for a $5 gallon of gas. Stupid Governator.
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Since I’ve been dropping so much coin anyway, my wife and I decided to make a little vacation out of this business trip. We’re heading out a day before and staying two days after the three day event. What will we do on the off days? I don’t know and I don’t care. If my wife is patient enough to let me drag her to LA while I go to a video game convention, we can do whatever she wants. What I do care about is maximizing my time during the event and people are already starting to try and fill up my day planner.
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So far I have received emails from Majesco (Bomberman and Bloodrayne series) and Codemasters (TOCA Touring Car series and Colin McRae Rally) and its not even June. Of course, I want to talk to the big guns. OXM’s Francesca Reyes and Paul Curthoys, Gamehead’s Geoff Keighley, PSM’s Chris Slate, Kojima (I’d crap my pants if I could swing that one), Microsoft’s Peter Moore, Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime, Rockstar’s Sam Houser, Shigeru Miyamoto (I’d need some Depends and a translator for that interview), G4’s Morgan Webb (Yowza!), EA’s Trip Hawkins, Major Nelson…the list goes on and on. Since I’m pushy, I’m sure I can nab one of those.
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Naturally the big three console makers are going to be holding their own press conferences off site, and they’re invite only as well. So I’ll need an invite on top of the invite I already have. I think I have a snowball’s chance in Phoenix of getting invited to Nintendo and Sony’s shindig. Nintendo has never shown me any love and I’ve dissed Sony a little too much and work for too small a paper for them to bother with me. But Microsoft? I think I’ve got a good shot at making that one.
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So what’s in it for you? Plenty. You’ll be right there with me the whole time. Not literally of course, but figuratively, that would be uncomfortable. In fact, this is better for you than it is for me since you don’t have to share a hotel room with me (I snore like a bear) and you don’t have to pay for anything. Although I will accept cash donations. You’ll be getting first hand reports from someone who’s just as much of a fan as a writer. I’ll be posting articles and pics everyday (I’m borrowing my brother’s digital camera, he just doesn’t know it yet) and since I come from a small paper in a relatively small town, maybe someone will pity me and give me a scoop.
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Well, someone better or I’m going to want my money back.
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