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I’ve been in the industry for 12 years The last thing I would like to say to the and am profoundly and nastily cynical as ESA regarding E3 is this: Please get over the next developer, but you achieve a The return to sanity. Los Angeles; I have. That is all. neat and thought-provoking balance between enthusiasm and reality. The Escapist team arrived home from E3 Those who are interested in news and To The Editor: Just a quick note to say well into the morning hours of Saturday, reviews from the largest, most widely thank you - I hope and trust you receive -Kim after a long, sleepless night of air travel. attended gaming industry conference in many of these, because you deserve Many are still recuperating. Some are the world can find write-ups and them. I really enjoy your magazine; it’s In Respose to “Whither Sony” from ailing from the excesses of one too many impressions from The Escapist staff at well-written, intelligent and thoughtful. The Escapist Lounge: If you look at long LA nights; others from what is The Escapist Lounge. We’ll also be Even when - perhaps especially when - I the historical pattern of how many cycles being called “The E3 Virus.” This editor bringing you our special Escape From don’t think I’m especially interested in it takes between a console makers entry suspects the two afflictions may be one E3 Issue of The Escapist next week the theme, I always find something to to market and their eventual squeezing in the same. (after we all return from doing just that), make me go “ooh, I didn’t know that / out, its typically 3. Atari had the 2600, but for this week we’re proud to present didn’t think of it that way.” the 5200 and the 7800 (or something) I have two things - no - three things to a selection of our favorite articles from say to the ESA regarding E3 2006. The issues past. first: When you announce that there will be food, please, for the love of God, make So heat up a cup of soup, curl up in a sure that there will actually be food. warm blanket and catch up on some fantastic pieces of videogame journalism Second, E3 2006 had to be the best you may have missed the first time presentation of games, consoles and around. game industry spokespeople it has ever been my pleasure to behold. I am now Cheers, positively bubbling over with excitement about what the years to come will bring to our shared pastime - on all platforms. To the ESA I say “Thank you.” before bowing out in the wake of on intoxicants? That’s really my foremost In Response to “At Night, the Ice Nintendo. Sega had the Genesis, the concern, here. Weasels Come” from The Escapist Saturn and the Dreamcast before being Lounge: Could you hint at the Guitar squeezed out. Now its Sony’s turn, the -Philip Hero guys that some people would like PS3 will be their last console. Nintendo to have it on another console. I would has been the sole exception to this In Response to “Warhammer Online like to try it out but I’m not going to buy pattern. or, ‘Do I expect Too Much’ “ from a PS3 and all my money is going to the The Escapist Lounge: Its painfully Wii and DS so I don’t have any spare -Patrick evident that this is your first look at the cash to buy a PS2... game. I suggest you go read up on it In Response to “Wii and We: Wee!” (even at this early stage information -Suyi from The Escapist Lounge: Thanks for abounds) and then try and say that it the write-up, Russ. Hearing the generally isn’t looking innovative. good news from your mouth puts to rest many of my worries concerning the Wii. -Dumyr Looking at those pictures, with all their I really appreciate this review. It seems fancy lights and shimmering stage-walls, fairly objective, other than a few biases I am amazed at how much money goes (“I wanted to see what the follow up to into creating things like “The Imperator’s failed development was”), Expwiirience,” as you dub it, as well as but a good baseline opinion from a non- E3 in general, and, really, any type of Warhammer fan. human gathering involving more than, say, six people. Where do people put all -Morskittar this money, such that I myself never seem able to find it, steal it, and spend it “Trip Hawkins is the Antichrist.” The scene: a bar at a gaming convention in the late 1980s. The speaker: an executive at the computer game company Origin who today, no doubt, would prefer to remain anonymous. Why the holy-fire view of William M. Hawkins III, founder of Electronic Arts? Because (as this exec explained) EA meant to win in the computer game business not only by making good games, but by preventing competitors from making good games too - by actively interfering with their ability to do business. As one example, EA had filed a frivolous lawsuit against Origin. Forced into a costly out- of-court settlement, Origin execs asked Trip Hawkins why he had allowed the suit; he responded, “This is just business. This is the way we’re going to win.” Furthermore, EA was all about could be a case study for future MBA marketing. For Hawkins the question was students. never, “How good is this game?” It was always, “How can we sell this?” To high- Why did Origin sell? It was partly due - minded execs at Origin - makers of the brace yourself - to the price of floppy Ultima and Wing Commander series, the disks. high priests of the high end, who valued commitment to an artistic vision - this Changing the World attitude was sacrilege. Founded in 1983, Origin was a creature of the dawn. Garriott had already gotten Ultima designer and Origin co-founder rich in high school, from a game he Richard “Lord British” Garriott even coded in BASIC in his bedroom and sold worked an EA reference into Ultima VII in a ziplock bag. Founding Origin with (1992). Two high-profile nonplayer $70,000 in family money, he and his characters, Elizabeth and Abraham, brother Robert created a culture that perform seemingly helpful tasks for the prized creative vision and expansive, player - but E. and A. turn out to be thoroughly developed game settings. murderers in league with the player’s The company later took the slogan “We nemesis, the Guardian. The three items create worlds.” that power the Guardian’s evil generators are a cube, a sphere and a Origin project director Stephen Beeman tetrahedron - the former EA logo. recalls, “Origin’s cardinal virtue was its commitment to do whatever it took to This reference in Ultima VII proved ship the director’s vision. We had a prophetic. In 1991 Hawkins left EA to motto for it: ‘A game’s only late until it found the short-lived 3DO Company. The ships, but it sucks forever.’ If the game’s next year, 1992, Origin entered dire creative vision demanded a megabyte of financial straits and sold out to EA. Yet graphics, and the only way to load that Origin never sold its soul; rather, EA into memory was to write our own spent the next 12 years gradually and operating system -” (the dubious painfully devouring it. The sad story “voodoo memory” scheme Origin created in 1992 for Ultima VII: The Black Gate) “- well, that’s what we did, and damn Commander had five core team the risk to the schedule or the members; Wing Commander II suddenly consequences to the budget, not to had 25. Star designer Chris Roberts, mention the programmers’ lives.” among others, drew a substantial salary. - a vision generally inspired by our love megabyte high-density floppy disks. In recent years, Electronic Arts has taken of film - then busted our asses to figure Origin games, in particular, required lots While Origin’s cash reserves were tapped heat for its sweatshop working out a way to pull that off. By contrast, of disks - often eight to ten disks that harder than ever, the Apple and conditions, but marathon crunches were companies like LucasArts or id started cost about 70 cents apiece. Cost of Commodore 64 platforms collapsed, a fact of life at Origin long before the with an idea of what it was possible to goods became such an issue that while taking with them many small retailers. purchase. Project teams endorsed do, then crafted killer gameplay around Strike Commander was in development, Origin not only lost the sales of its Apple Beeman’s doctrine: “Sleep is for the that. When our creative vision turned out the team jokingly suggested shipping the and C64 back inventory, but it suddenly weak.” to be achievable in a reasonable time (as game pre-installed on its own 20MB hard had to eat bad debt from failed with Wing Commander I and II), we hit drive. (Strike shipped on eight floppies in companies in the channel. Worse, Producer Warren Spector worked at home runs. When the creative vision 1993, but CD-ROMs finally became Richard Garriott had chosen to develop Origin from 1989 to 1996. “I always felt turned out not to be achievable, commonplace in time for a later new projects first on the Apple platform we were genuinely trying to change the development dragged on until the next expanded edition.) Wing Commander rather than the technically inferior IBM world,” he says.