At an event that was ostensibly about gaming's future, there was an awful lot of wrangling about the present. The year 2013 finds the gaming industry in a state of uncomfortable flux, scrabbling around for new ideas, business models and paradigms to push this no longer young artform to the next level. Within this four day extravanganza there were reasons for both hope and scepticism on display, sometimes alarmingly close to each other.
The part of this E3 that will make headlines for years to come was of course Microsoft and Sony's head-to-head clash over the thorny issue of consumer rights and the ever present industry boogeyman of the used games market. Sony painted itself as the people's choice, while Microsoft advocated the technology and adaptivity of the all digital future that every gaming company is essentially moving towards. There's little doubt who won, at least in the minds of those who care about such things, and Sony's delicious turning of the knife brought to mind some of the great E3 battles of years past. If this was a mission to capture hearts and minds, then they firmly followed the Japanese company back over the ocean.
The truth is, of course, more complicated than what was written on the blogs and expressed on Twitter. Despite their (damaging) public unwillingness to fully divulge their thinking, Microsoft's always on, digitally managed future has from the beginning been based on a gamble. This strategy loses Microsoft a significant chunk of userbase for sure, be it those unable to fulfil the requirements for Xbox One ownership or those who are unwilling to compromise their principals to use the device. What Microsoft has bet on though is that increased security, anti-piracy and connectivity will make up the shortfall from those lost users in both tangible (i.e. revenue based) and intangible (data capture, public mindshare, convenience) ways. This time round Microsoft operates from a position of strength - their massive 360 install base and their position at the forefront of gamers minds (at least in the core territory of North America) means they can leverage their position as the #1 games console onto a new generation of hardware.
At least, that was the plan before this conference. Even if you strip away the hysterical reaction, there's no doubt that Sony bloodied Microsoft's nose in some pretty significant ways. Their announcement of no system-level restrictions on game ownership is significant but perhaps not the dagger in the heart some portrayed it as. It undoubtedly makes a major difference to those who care about such things, but the impact on the mass consumer remains unseen. On thing I will say though is that generally, the people spending money are smarter than most massive corporations would like to believe. Money talks though, and the significant price-gap between the two platforms at launch will cause any shopper to pause a moment.
Even leaving that aside though, Sony's play for the hearts and minds of fans was comprehensive and convincing. Microsoft have made no greater error in the runup to the present than horrible PR management, whereas Sony have expertly played their fans and the videogaming community at large. Their outreach to independent developers might not make much money at the end of the day, but it's a convincing recasting of a corporate entity no less massive than Microsoft as the defender of the 'little man', something which their well constructed press presentation sold effortlessly - smart, knowing but never sarcastic or directly confrontational. Compared to Don Mattrick's charisma void and Phil Spencer's smarmy, stuck up brashness, Jack Tretton radiated wry wisdom while Adam Boyes brought geek charm and enthusiasm and Andrew House delivered straight-talking business sense. The overall atmosphere was friendlier and more consumer orientated, while Microsoft could occasionally devolve into as mess of Teflon personalities and buzzwords.
And what of Nintendo, the king whose crown has been slipping for almost twenty years at this point? Their decision to not hold a large scale press conference was perhaps a sign of little legitimately groundbreaking news to deliver and while the alternative Nintendo Direct videostream was interesting and well received it did nothing to disprove that idea. More than ever Nintendo seems a company out of time, one which desperately strip-mines its past in order to secure its future. That is not meant to be an insult to the quality of their software, which remains among the finest in the world and consistently produces games of sublime brilliance. Their legacy, their dedicated fanbase and that excellent software platform means that rumours of the death of the company are, in my opinion, greatly exaggerated. But Nintendo is clearly struggling to stay relevant in a world where it is dwarfed by the titans of mainstream populism and unable to connect to an audience that would rather shoot dudes than pretend to be a plumber or a fairy boy.
The 'core bloodline' Mario games continue to cloak innovation that would shame lesser companies inside a familiar shell, but elsewhere there are signs that the well is genuinely running dry. Nintendo's decision to look to Zelda's past in the form of an HD remake of The Wind Waker and pseudo-sequel A Link Between Worlds stinks of stop-gap software selling. In the former's case you're devoting energy and personnel to an already existing game, while in the latter case you're burdening a game with the impossible legacy of living up to an all-time great. It's perhaps telling that the freshest, most vital concepts Nintendo showed were not made by them. Instead, they-that-can-do-no-wrong Platinum games lit the presentation up with the louche, irreverent chaos of Bayonetta 2 and the charming comic stylings of The Wonderful 101. Nintendo's decision to devote on their finest second party design teams, Retro Studios, to another classically styled Donkey Kong game was as baffling as it was disappointing. It was the safe decision perhaps, but not the right one.
Indeed, if there was an overriding theme to E3 this year, it was safety. Rather than use the new generation to foster a new explosion of ideas, publishers and developers seemed instead to focus on using established brands to bridge the gap safely. It's totally understandable from an economic point of view, especially in a rough economic situation, but artistically it's disappointing and in the long run it may prove dangerous. The death of the 'mid-tier' game is a phenomenon that has been much remarked upon but it was more true than ever this time around. The games that were put front and centre at E3 2013 were games that were designed to reinforce the technological and populist dominance of gaming's alpha males - an endless parade of bombast, spectacle, and 'cinematic gameplay', too often delivered from the end of a gun barrel. For all the genuinely interesting innovations which appeared (persistent online worlds with seamless single/multiplayer were an interesting recurring theme) thematically the industry seems stuck in a creative rut.
There's hope though. More than ever, the torch is being carried by independent developers and small scale teams. With graphical sophistication hitting a point of diminishing returns and the ease of all-digital distribution cutting out the need for huge publishing and distribution networks, independent game development is in a golden age that hasn't been seen since the startups of late 80s and early 90s. It was the indies who carried the torch for fun, innovation and interest at this E3, producing charming concepts that were infinitely ore interesting to me than the banging and crashing of the bigger games. Indie development is bigger than ever and seeing those games on the main stages at Microsoft and Sony was curiously comforting to me. It reassured me that no matter how monolithic the entities at the top become, there'll always be an undercurrent of fresh, young blood who are interested in shaking up the status quo. The more options, the more challenges, the more tools there are for developers big and small. the better games will come out at the end. And ultimately, that means we all win.
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