E3: Convention Analysis

Video Games have become an incredibly popular source of pop culture. Perhaps it is because of the increased improvements on the graphics that has made some games incredibly realistic, or because more of the people who grew up playing video games have gotten jobs in the industry where they called the shots to how this industry worked. Whatever the reason, video games as an industry has caused the development of different events where all of the newest games could be showcased to potential buyers. Simply referred to as E3, this particular convention has been used by different companies to promote their newest video games in the hopes of gaining more buyers. This is usually achieved by implementing certain tactics. Some video game companies, like Nintendo, basically put on shows that let people know that their games are able to be played by people of all ages. Some other companies, like Square Enix during the most recent E3 convention, used the idea of announcing new titles that have been requested by fans for years. In regards to the recent video games made by Microsoft, this company primarily appealed to potential buyers by taking a classic video game and making a reboot of the series so that new aesthetics could appeal to people who were new to the series or knew the old series and were excited at the prospect of an old game with new mechanics. Basically many tactics were used during E3 to get people excited about video games, and here were some examples.

The nice thing about Nintendo as a game company was that it made games that people of all ages could enjoy. No matter what genre of game was created by Nintendo, all of the content was made so that people both young and old could play the whole game without any problems. Needless to say, most of the young gamers that were around during Nintendo's early years have grown-up. Fortunately, Nintendo managed to cater to the older gamers by doing things that older gamers would think was awesome. Like getting the creators of Robot Chicken to make skits poking fun at the content that was going to come up during the presentation. Like no new Super Mario games, mocking the fact that Bowser constantly kidnapped Princess Peach, Little Mac from Punch-Out!! not taking of his gloves, and having Mario save the day and demand a new game. Of course, seeing two of the higher-ups of Nintendo's organization fighting each other as a way to promote a new feature for the recent Smash Bros. game was also pretty awesome. Mostly because it helped emphasize the fact the player could now make digital avatars of themselves participate in fights with actual Nintendo characters. Other interesting games that were introduced by Nintendo in this E3 event were a Legend of Zelda game that combined the explorative nature of the very first game and the graphics of modern games, a Super Mario game where one could create their own levels, and a possibly new Starfox game. Basically Nintendo appealed to both old and new gamers by taking familiar franchises and introducing some new aspects to how these games were played.

During the most recent E3 convention the company Square Enix managed to excite the crowd the most in regards to getting people excited for new games. Turns out, some of the games that Square Enix premiered were games fans wanted over the years. For example, one of the games shown was Kingdom Hearts 3. For context the Kingdom Hearts franchise was a group of games where the player played through a multiverse that combined both Disney and Final Fantasy characters and settings. Unfortunately, the Kingdom Hearts franchise has included numerous amounts of spin-offs that provided more questions than answers and unnecessary mechanics. So with the announcement of Kingdom Hearts 3, viewers got to see a game go back to its roots and hopefully not use complicated mechanics for its game. The addition of even better graphics also won people's favor since it looked like more of the landscape could be more thoroughly explored. Another game that managed to excite viewers was the trailer for the HD remake for the game Final Fantasy 7. For context Final Fantasy 7 was a game that came out in 1997. The 1997 version had graphics that were amazing for its time, but it was hard to really convey some of the more emotional scenes with the graphical limitations of that time. But with the updated graphics of modern gaming systems, all of the scenes from the original game could be rendered into looking more realistic with the introduction of voice qcting. Basically Square Enix used the hype of seeing video game classics made into more modern games, and the potential money that could be made.

As written in the article Character Themes: Hype Effects, the 2013 game Killer Instinct was essentially a reboot of the original Killer Instinct from 1994. Due to having the original company of this game, Rare, being purchased by Microsoft in 2002, all of the games made by Rare had the opportunity to have a different aesthetic for their characters. And while some of the earlier games Microsoft made that were based on Rare characters were not as great as their originals, this modern remake actually had people wanting to play this game. Mostly because this version of Killer Instinct kept the core mechanics the same, up to and including making remixes of familiar sounds to make players who have played the original games actually feel positively nostalgic about having this game. In regards to the nostalgia that this game created, Microsoft was immensely successful in this case because there was a minor amount of changes to the overall game. While there were some changes to what the characters looked like compared to their previous incarnations, most of the change in aesthetics were used to convey both theme background that certain characters had in the overall story, and to show how much the improved graphics of Microsoft's XBox One compared to the graphical limitations of 1994. Unfortunately, while the initial Killer Instinct reboot look amazing, there were some problems that new buyers encountered. Mostly the fact that downloading the game was somewhat problematic. But since there is already a season 3 coming out soon, Killer Instinct seems to be doing well for the most part.

E3 as an event was a chance for game companies to show potential buyers all of the new games they could buy soon. Getting people excited for certain games, however, can take many forms depending on the company. As seen in Nintendo, their form of selling their new games was to point out how awesomely surreal some of the new features could get, especially compared to older games. In the most recent E3 convention, Square Enix managed to beat other game companies by making games people have wanted for a long time but never thought would never get developed as soon as they did. And Microsoft was able to get people to want their new game by appealing to nostalgia.