And now, a quick story about my trip on the rental car shuttle.
As you may already remember, it took freaking forever for the rental shuttle to arrive (and, as I’d later find out, for the E3 shuttles to arrive – are they the same shuttle company?). When it did, I got on, and sat next to a mom and her young son (probably 12 or so).
She started talking like friendly people usually do, and asked what I was doing in the area. I told her I was covering E3, and the kid’s eyes lit up like a crack addict. He started talking excitedly about games he wanted to play, and asked me if I could get him in. I told him I would smuggle him in my backpack if he wanted, and his mom laughed. (I was serious – women just don’t understand E3!)
He kept asking me questions, like did I like Metal Gear 4, was the new Mario fun, what was my favorite Pokemon, etc. (Only seen trailers but yes, don’t know yet, Squirtle.) I was getting a little annoyed with the kid, but he was pretty quiet until he started going, and he was having fun talking about stuff so I let him go on for a few minutes.
When we got to the last stop on the shuttle route before it entered Freeway World, a trio of people got on; instantly I KNEW they were covering E3. There was one woman in the group, but all three weighed at least 1.5 me’s (and I’m a fairly big guy at 6’5" 230), and the two guys were wearing dirty shirts and short shorts. Basically, the BAD stereotypical gamers.
The kid didn’t pay any attention to them (he didn’t have Spider-Sense like me), and kept talking about E3. The MOMENT he started talking and mentioned E3, the new passengers turned on him, and started bragging about "all the times they’ve been to E3" and how "over-excited kids like him are what ruined it." Ouch. God bless the kid, he didn’t let it phase him. He ignored them and went back to talking about Guitar Hero with me (I told him I’d try to get RedOctane to send him a shirt or something).
But the trio was not amused at his ignoring. They barged back into the conversation, saying that "We are the ones who have been to the most E3s here, so we know what we’re talking about since we’re like the Kings of E3." I didn’t know they were royalty, so I apologized for ignoring them and asked where this Land of E3 was located, and was it named after the conference.
Never joke with people who are asses. They started going on and spewing a ton of stuff even I won’t type here. It ended with them starting to brag about how they each got three copies of The Darkness before the game came out, and still went and bought a copy at the store. (Good for them?) They then started lecturing us (including the mom) on the benefits of a three-reviewer system, and why it was better than having only one guy review a game. I told them that the way most of those systems are set up, it hurts the review since it turns into one short blurb followed by two "Well, X said this, but…" essays.
They told me that’s why GamerNode isn’t as famous as their print publication (which I won’t reveal, but smart people can likely guess it). If being famous means I have to be an a**hole to a little kid excited about talking video games with someone when he’s otherwise bored and alone on vacation, I think I’d rather stay unknown.
