E3 Countdown: Rubbing Elbows at E3

There are many types of people that attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo each year. Floods of media, industry professionals, booth babes, fanboys, celebrities, swag tossers, and bouncers crowd the show floor and pack the place tighter than Times Square on New Year’s Eve. I have been to four E3 shows and I have found that the games aren’t the only spectacle to be appreciated; the people are quite the attraction as well. Here’s a quick breakdown of the variety of people that quite often become personal space invaders:

The Developer
Two years ago when F-Zero GX was being shown, I was able to sit back and listen to two developers talk about people’s reactions to their game. These guys were stopping gamers at random to ask for feedback and it was really cool to see the interaction between creator and consumer. It’s hard to spot the developers as they usually drop by the booth at random to gauge reactions for only a few minutes at a time; but should you get a chance to converse with one, it’s fascinating to listen to what they have to say.

The Camera Guy
Before you actually catch a visual of this guy, you usually trip over the cable to his camera or light. It’s pretty embarrassing at first, but you feel better about it after you watch six or seven more people do the same thing after you. This guy is wanting you to do one of two things based on how you look:

A) Get out of his way so that he can get a clean shot
B) Stay in his shot to make it a more comedic atmosphere for the viewers.

Unfortunately for me, I often am encouraged to be background noise for the TV spot. I guess there’s something funny about a dorky looking guy carrying ten bags full of swag with his clothes clinging to his sweat soaked body with all the booth babes in the area laughing and pointing. Well, this year I’ve dropped a few (tens of) pounds and I’m expecting to be waved out of the shot this time around.

The Hip-Hop Star
If you get bowled over by an entourage of rent-a-cops, big booties, midgets, and people screaming, “PIMP MY RIDE!” you’re probably about to share space with a famous rap star. Due to the fact that you have at least one-hundred people packed into a twenty foot radius and rent-a-cop security officers ready to club someone, it’s best to step back and watch the crowd roll on by.

Writers
You can tell a member of the print or internet media from an average gamer by how frantic they look. The slave drivers (owners of the media outlets) force their editors to cover EVERYTHING at the show, even games like Happy Fun Times with the Wiggles. Here at AMN we’ll be running from the show floor to the media rooms to have updates as fast as possible.

The Fanboy
Usually you can spot your fanboys because they are doing one of three things that gives them away. The first and most annoying fanboy activity is when they go to a booth of a company that they are biased against and mention how bad the games in the booth suck. Last year I ran into one of these bunches of joy while I was trying to get impressions of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures as he just sat around and attacked the other players and shared his distaste for all things Nintendo. The funny thing is that they still spend ten minutes playing the game that they supposedly hate that was developed by some studio with “no innovation or talent.”

The second activity of the fanboy is to park themselves in the middle of their preferred game developer and just freak out. This guy tries to convince everybody around that each game in the booth is the best game ever developed and will put [insert company name here] on top for good. According to him, the console wars will soon be over and he wants to tell you why.

The third activity that fanboys embark on is the transformation from common man to information hound. This involves hunting down anybody with a media or V.I.P. badge. This sad individual assumes that everyone with a different colored badge than their own has tons of information on hidden projects, next-generation innovations, and Shigeru Miyamato’s AIM contact information. I’m planning on keeping track of how many times I get asked if I have any information on whether or not game X will have online play or not. It is fun to mess around with these guy’s heads though.

The entrance to Nintendo’s booth last year. Fanboys, your pilgrimage ends here.

The Booth Babe
90% of you probably skipped what was written above to find out what I had to say about the booth babes; it’s ok, I would have too. Booth babes are the second biggest attraction at E3 and everybody wants to have their picture taken with one or two thousand. There are four main types of booth babe that you’ll find at E3 and each one has an important role to fill.

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The most common booth babe you’ll see at E3 is the barely dressed busty babe. Just about everywhere you look you’ll find this type of booth babe posing for pictures with guys that wouldn’t ever get within a hundred feet of them in any other setting. Guys will burn through hours upon hours of their precious E3 time to have their picture taken with these foxy ladies and to later show off the pictures to their friends. About 80% of these picture opportunities end with the booth babe wiping some greasy dude’s sweat off of her arm once he walks off. Don’t fool yourselves, these ladies are working hard (it’s tough holding back repulsion at times). Most of these babes are very friendly and all, but don’t expect them to be willing to hold a conversation with an average E3 attendee. Shawn actually proposed to one of these babes in a regrettable and drunken state. He doesn’t allow us to talk about her answer though…

Here’s Rob hanging out with a few babes at E3 ’04

The next flavor of booth babe is the kind you would take home to your mother. Nintendo seems to favor this kind of babe, but that isn’t to say that they aren’t found elsewhere. These babes are usually pretty and cute, but they are more modestly dressed. It seems that these babes are a lot more knowledgeable about the games within the booth and far more willing to converse with the average E3 attendee. You marry this type of babe, but you date the type of babe we previously talked about. Shawn actually proposed to one of these babes in a regrettable and drunken state. He doesn’t allow us to talk about her answer though…

Nintendo’s more modestly dressed babes.

The next type of booth babe is sort of a sad story. This babe thinks that her modeling career is going to be launched by her gig as an E3 booth babe. She doesn’t pay much attention to the gawking crowds, and she almost always turns down photo requests. This babe pretty much is there to be seen and not touched nor spoken to unless you represent some modeling agency based out of Europe. Shawn actually proposed to one of these babes in a regrettable and drunken state. He doesn’t allow us to talk about her answer though…

The last major type of booth babe is a…GUY?!?!? Yeah, there are booth dudes too. Microsoft uses more booth dudes than any other company, and they are usually very well-trained on the games that they are presenting. These guys don’t get their pictures taken with anyone usually, but I don’t think they care too much about that. Shawn actually proposed to one of these babes in a regrettable and drunken state. He doesn’t allow us to talk about his answer though…

The Rare and Elusive Booth Dude

The Celebrity
There are quite a few celebrities making their way around the show floor. Some of the celebrities are pretty big names and some are just those guys you sort of recognize from reality TV shows. Most of the celebrities are surrounded by security and you have to wait in a ridiculously long line to get close to them, but others are found in the booths. I have been able to play games with an American Idol loser, a Survivor loser, and one day I hope to play with a winner of some sorts. I haven’t ever waited in any lines to see any celebrities, but it was tempting last year to wait in the line for Stan Lee’s autograph. Shawn actually…never mind, it’s getting old.

Stan Lee at E3 2004, there was a huge line leading up to his desk.

Our own Ray Almeda posing with Jenny McCarthy.

There are other types of people to be found on the show floor, but my Shawn joke has ran its course and my creativity has boundaries that are more rigid than a boarding school’s rules. Make sure to check in with AMN regularly as we’ll have updates rolling in almost constantly from the show floor. We’ll have interviews, impressions, media, and all sorts of good stuff to satisfy your E3 needs.