Meewella | Fragments

The Life of P

Searching for a Smaller E3

Microsoft’s Live Search allows easy construction of user-created search engines like this one for P-2006. Sure it has long been possible to get Google to display search results for your own site, but the macro system allows someone with no technical knowledge to create a customised engine that searched the sites they want in (to an extent) the way they want. The search facility in P-2006 is in need of an overhaul. The Live alternative has the advantage of searching the entire site at once and delivering summaries rather than full entries. The downside is that as an external page it lacks proper integration. I’d like to hear your thoughts on our search facility — do you use it to find older entries and how well does it work for you?

The ESA have released details about the downsized E3 2007. For starters it will be in July rather than May so that noise you hear is probably my DoS breathing a sigh of relief. Shortly after this year’s E3 closed, they announced had been the industry’s largest annual event would be significantly cut back into a focused trade show as it had originally been intended. Many felt the circuslike atmosphere, lax entry requirements and skyrocketing budgets were getting out of hand.

However, it was also the chief way the gaming industry was able to portray itself to the outside world — sure booth babes may not have been the ideal advertising mechanism (or perhaps they were too ideal) but the intense atmosphere showcased a flourishing industry at its excessive best. With E3 as we know it gone, will the external media take gaming as seriously, or find it as interesting? With activists and critics rallying against major developers and publishers, the industy needs an outlet to present itself in a good light, and the suited trade affair being planned is not it. Whether even fans remain interested in E3 depends largely on the traditional “big three” (Microsoft, Nintendo & Sony) pre-E3 news conferences and quality of game presentations that can be watched by home viewers.

Many surmised earlier this year that Penny Arcade’s fledgling PAX, which has gone from strength to strength in just a few years, might be primed to take over. It is a fan-focused show for those who play games, not just the industry bigwigs, and therefore extravagance counts. Whether it too will spiral out of control remains to be seen.

1 Comment

  1. Just to prove that once you have left uni you can still have far too much time on your hands…

    typo in ‘Ninteno’ good sir. 🙂

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"Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has."

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