No Final Decisions on E3 2024 or Beyond Have Been Made

I think that E3 2026 was always the one that people were hyped for so it's fine

Can't wait for E3 2026. Gonna be awesome!

@Triumph741 you raise a good point

Can't wait for the ESA to announce E3's return in 2026 and for everyone to bail out again as the memes pour in.

I use to watch e3 all the times.the memories.it was fun watching e3.especially when the g.o.a.t. 🐐 👑PlayStation was there.word up son

Yeah I think its dead.

Thing is the industry is still doing the e3 June calendar just without e3 because everyone expects it and it's near their agms. They seem to want it they just don't want to pay esa fees for it.

Let’s all meet back here in a few months time when they admit it actually is cancelled!

I was all for digital showcases but they really do suck. I miss the technical issues, companies 1-upping each other, cringe celebrities, vocal audiences, ACTUAL LIVE DEMOS

Geoff Keighley's show reminded me of that and I really did miss it. Even though the show wasn't amazing in terms of showing, I enjoyed it so much more than the others

Its time has passed. Just kill the thing off and move on already.

@theMEGAniggle Ubi did the truly live show but it felt so tiny compared to their real e3 ones, cringe as they were. Honestly the best show that really captured the true feel of a real e3 show was Devolver. That's a show that takes you right back to the golden days every time! 😂

Help, to anyone listening.
Please don't let all gaming fall under Geoffies empire
You are our only hope

@Grimwood Oh, no-no, I meant that this years Devolver show takes you back to the golden days of E3 shows in general and what made them special.

Which E3 shows in particular it reminds one of is a personal time machine.

DOODOLEDOO DOODLEDOO DOODLEDOO

@NEStalgia Aisha Tyler's hosting was always fun yet cringe to watch

Devolver digital are amazing, their shows are so chaotic. I didn't see theirs this year though. I just want one big event that everyone is at, rather than all these disappointing, time wasting prerecorded conferences where very little is actually being announced

Nintendo really started this with their online directs

@theMEGAniggle LOL, yeah, I miss the cringe but good Aisha shows. Heck with these Digtial shows sucking so hard, I miss Mr. Caffeine himself.

You must watch Devolver's show from this year if you miss E3. It's not a real live show it's all a production of course, by my goodness thy captured E3. The awe, the cringe, mostly the cringe, but it reminded me of what it used to be like all the same lol. It's what they were going for. The FULL cringe, but it's all nostalgic!

Totally agree about how bad the prerecorded ones are. I started watching the Nintendo one and the whole beginning has not one spoken word, it's just flashing pictures with background music. I'd even take Jim on stage for an hour rather than what we have. It's THAT bad!

They're horrible.

Nintendo started it kind of, but at least when they started it it it was still an actual presentation by actual executives and presenters explaining things, added fun cringey skits, and mostly served as a way for a team that spoke almost no english to have a functional presentation worldwide without resorting to just commercials from external PR firms. And then they had the Treehouse format at E3 which was like 14 hours of staffers playing through and explaining games and execs dropping in to discuss more, so instead of a 1 hour press conference, it was like a 15 hour demonstration event including a recording press conference.

Then when Iwata died his successors just mailed the whole package to an external PR firm to make a commercial out of, and then everyone copied that.

@NEStalgia I'll check it out for sure

It's sad how these companies just jump on a trend even when it sucks. Obviously the threat of COVID was enough for them to hop on that as an excuse to go digital but I'm hoping there's an event that would bring the official shows back

Yes there's Gamescom and the summer games fest but they suck. TGS as well, it's just not the same. Still remember being introduced to the puppeteer way back in a TGS. Was it 2013?

Maybe this is just me getting older and losing that desire for gaming but it feels like that spark that games and the events had is long gone now. Sad

I am looking forward to starfield and Spider-Man 2 though. Mainly Spider-Man 2

@theMEGAniggle Is not age, it's just changed from what it was. It used to be a cottage industry by fans for fans and mostly privately owned companies run by their founders, along with the big platform holders who mostly were side arms of the company run by passionate people from that original group.

Now? It's just the big corporate media industry like film, TV, and music, and run with the same incomprehensible approach by the same bloodsucking media executives. That's the difference. Games used to be an industry. Now they're just a point of delivery for the media industry.

Although personally spiderman is the epitome of the whole problem... That's one in not terribly interested in, myself. Star field, armored core, though, that's exciting.

@NEStalgia I think there's still enjoyment to be had though. Regardless of how the industry has evolved, or devolved, or how everything is drawn out with heavy involvement from the suits that run the publishing arms or executives. There is still enjoyment to be had. However, it's just not hitting for me anymore.

I do slightly understand why you'd say Spider-Man is part of the issue but Insomniac know how to make fun games. I wonder, why do you think it's the epitome of the whole problem? Is it because of heavy executive involvement in that

@theMEGAniggle Enjoyment in games, sure. Enjoyment in following the industry? Not so much. It went from individual companies either founder-CEO companies with a plan and a dream to sell, or even the big ones like Sony and Nintendo having leaders that were passionate about the product to simple bean counters like Furukawa and "media men" like Ryan, interested in growing the bottom line only. Heck NoA's Doug Bowser is literally a Procter & Gamble guy. It literally is all just toothpaste and laundry detergent to him. Nintendo's interim guy, Kimishima, was quite literally a banker. Sony's president Ken Yoshida came from Sony Financial. The games industry is about as fun to watch as the commodities trade because it's the same people running it.

Spiderman....keep in mind I'm not a Marvel fan, don't follow the current Marvel multi-media zeitgeist, never was interested in Marvel as a kid. So if you have attachment to the character I'm sure it presents differently. I don't, so it's all about the game for me. Ultimately it's a Marvel/Disney/Media-zeitgeist on-trend licensed brand game. Starting just from there, we kind of know we're staring at the problem in the face, right? It's squarely in the "lets become part of the media cycle" mentality that dragged games from gaming into being just another part of the cycle. Sure there was the odd cash grab licensed game since the dawn of gaming, going all the way back to Atari, but that was dif...oh...wait...

But licensed games aren't always a bad things. There's some legendary Star Wars games that are way better than the actual films, IOI's probably doing something great with James Bond. So then we get back to Spidy. You're right, Insomniac knows (knew?) how to make fun games. That's why I actually preordered the first game (got my pin mailed and all!), I knew I could count on Insomniac. I'm not a Marvel fan in the slightest but I'm an Insomniac fan.

But then I played that game....and....that....didn't feel like an Insomniac game to me. It felt cookie cutter, stamped out of the mold by the numbers. Like classic licensed game fare. Heck the old PS2 Activision spiderman game had physics in the swinging! On a PS2! The PS4 game has a looping animation with little to no player control. "Hold R2 to forward." It has a bland open world that would be outdated on the PS3. Repeating "stop the car" "stop the burglars" quests endless random popup quests. Sucker Punch did far far more dynamic open worlds even if they were also repetitive back in inFamous1 let alone 2. (Massive inFamous fan here!) Although they slid into this kind of repetition with Second Son, but that was a game that was clearly rushed out the door for launch window... This could not possibly be the Insomniac that gave us Sunset Overdrive, could it??

Then I bought Miles (fool me once) because I figured maybe they sorted it out, (and it was the only PS5 major launch title if you're not a Soulsborne fanatic which I am not), and nope, same thing. More tolerable because it was less spread out actually, but still a bland, pointless open world and a 10 hour interactive movie quest. People talk about the combat like it's brilliant, but there's two games I'd compare it to: Arkham but less visceral, or Knack 2 but less visceral. Now I say that as a Knack 2 superfan. But I think Knack 2's version of the combat was more fun. Or at worst the same.

The nuts and bolts feel like the most manufactured to a specification game that I've played in a long time. I don't think it's a bad game, but it's just so....assembly line....in its whole design. Which is what I'd expect for Disnely-licensed-anything, because that's Disney in a nutshell, but.....not from Insomniac!

Heck all it took for people to get hyped for Spidey 2 was finding out they can go to Queens. No normal human being gets excited because they can go to Queens. Nobody will ever say that. If that's what makes the game more exciting, that says a lot right there. Oh, and Brooklyn. If it was set in the 1920s Brooklyn would be thrilling. Set in the 2020s it's only exciting if someone burns your avocado toast and spills your mocha latte, then someone in $400 Yoga pants may threaten their father will sue someone and sh-- gets real.

It has it's moments, but......it's really the least exciting thing I can think of in gaming right now. Critical as I am of XVI I'm much more inclined to buy that at any given moment than Spidey 2. Maybe... Unless we find out Spidey does something wildly different than the previous games, but it doesn't sound like it strays far, so far.

@NEStalgia in a wholly gameplay perspective I would understand your point, but that's the thing. Games have evolved way past the point of being looked at and judged wholly for their gameplay.

Superhero games may never be for you then because it's story and presentation first, gameplay a close second. If you were never interested in the character as a kid, it would be a lot harder for you as an adult to suspend your disbelief and just like the ability to play as a human with super strength and spider abilities. And as for what has changed, it looks like SP 2 has a lot more fun gameplay changes to it. The addition of Queens adds for a larger sandbox and more space for the faster traversal, but that one is minor. Combat is your issue? Well there are way more gadgets and Venom powers, as well as more powers to explore from 2 very different Spider-Men.

Your point about it being set in 1920s is just not realistic because unless it was a story about Spider-Man Noir, it wouldn't make sense to be playing a Spider-Man game in that time period.

The swinging is miles above any other Spider-Man game. I get the criticism with "oh but you can't swing on the floor, the swinging holds your hands too much". I think they could very easily go for that Spider-Man 2 Movie game style as the swinging is physics based but the animations make it so much more fun. In the Spider-Man 2 Movie game, the swinging is so bland. You swing, you go fast, you swing again, no flashy animations and I think if you want it to look as good as we have in the Insomniac games, that's the trade off. I'm sure they will cave in eventually or find a way to blend the physics based swinging perfectly with more 'realistic' animations. The swinging has a lot of control to it and the only things that hold it back for people are the inability to fail while swinging close to the ground and the automated parkour system that transitions your momentum into wall runs and the like. Something that was a big complaint about the Spider-Man 2 Movie game but people have turned it on its side to be a sudden criticism of Insomniac's games and in favour of the SP 2 Movie game. Sad that a game gets criticised for having nice animations

The thing I absolutely hate about these games are not the side quests because they are actually pretty good, from Tombstone to the Science labs for Harry, to Speedball that stinking witch. I absolutely hate the open world activities. I was on a long but painful journey to plat the game and the amount of beat up these guys, chase this car and repeat that I had to do was ungodly. I understand having stuff to do in open world games but devs need to learn that its better to have one or two than 100 same ones that just cycle between one or two scenarios.

A close second is the break in pace with the MJ and Miles without powers missions, thank God Miles Morales did not have those because I would have screamed

@theMEGAniggle I'll never, ever, be a proponent of "story/presentation-first", I think that's a pox on gaming. That doesn't mean story is irrelevant, but the gameplay is what you pay your money for. Otherwise a movie is a lot cheaper and a lot more concise.

At the same time, though, I wouldn't go as far as brushing away the whole genre. I'm a huge fan of inFamous, for example. Love those games, they always left me feeling like there wasn't enough of them and I was eager for more. Gutted there's no more. And that's kind of my problem with Insomniac's Spiderman games. They're like a hollow, worse, checklisted empty copy of Sucker Punch's inFamous games, with less interesting combat, less interesting abilities, less interesting world, less motivation to engage with anything in said world, no decision making to influence the world. The gameplay feels basically like a glued together QTE sequence in service of delivering a protracted animated film, and the whole thing rests on its Disney license to sell the deal with a famous character. It surely doesn't rest on it's gameplay. And while you're not wrong with "story and presentation first", that's the problem. It's a movie that has repetitive basic gameplay in a barebones open world attached that's a worse superhero experience than what Sony's other studio already made 2 generations ago, padded out by repetitive yet slow stealth play that consumes significant playtime but isn't very dynamic. That isn't at all what I expected from Insomniac. Their games are normally all about fun, not barely interacting with movies. That's what ND is for. Isn't that exactly the kind of thing gamers used to roll their eyes at with licensed games years ago?

Strong disagree on swinging though. It's not fun. It's anything but fun. It's the opposite of fun. It's pretty. It's fun the first 20 minutes you play. And then it gets old, very old, very fast. Because you're really just doing "hold trigger to run fast" but it shows swinging animations. Eventually you realize you're not doing much of anything at all. If it were something the happens in a few segments here and there, it would be one thing, but it's a tedious navigation of an empty open world, and the gimmick of the pretty animations wears off as soon as you spend a while doing it. I've already done it for a game and I half and I'd be happy to never have to do it again unless it becomes something actually interactive.

Of course Spiderman can't be set in the 20's, my point is Brooklyn is a fascinating place a century ago. It's the most boring imaginable thing today. I know Spiderman is locked into a boring idyllic version of modern NYC, but fans going crazy about the addition of more boring mallified NY is kind of funny when you know the actual mallified boring version of it. I mean I can't imagine the E3 crowd going crazy over the Spiderman 3 announcement they're including Hartford, CT. Can't wait for the Starbucks and Panera DLC pack. Woooo...

Obviously if they REALLY expanded gameplay in 2 then it's more interesting, I can of course only go by 1 and Miles right now, and if it's more of the same I'm very much out.

But yes, exactly, the open world we agree on!! And quite honestly I think that drags the game down considerably. It's a case were adding more harms the whole. No, if it were just a linear on rails licensed interactive movie game without the open world at all, I would still not be all that fond of it personally, but it at least moves squarely into "not my kind of game" and away from "this has bad qualities that put it behind a 15 year old series from another 1st party studio." If you're not going to USE your open world, don't MAKE an open world just to checklist it for investors and marketing. With an open world you expect to spend most of your playtime exploring the world. And that's not what these games do.

The TL;DR is I think the games are very much style over substance where presentation is the focus, the licensed character/world holds back much in the way of creativity, and they're just not the kind of addictive gameplay I know from Insomniac. I think the production value blinds people too easily to the reality that it's basically the typical licensed by-the-numbers affair, where if you're a big fan of the character/world it'll be enough to enjoy by playing through that world, and if you're not there's not really enough there to pull your interest into it. They're not bad, they're just average licensed games with above average visual flair, but below average gameplay for what Insomniac is capable of. The open world activities are just plain bad though.

@NEStalgia the way you talk about swinging being bad is crazy to me. It's as if don't know you can't release your web at any point, use momentum to generate speed, swing into a point launch then back into swinging. The physics are there. Your skill level must not be that advanced if all you do is hold R2 and that's it. You also have the quick swinging where you hold R2 and tap x in time with your quickest velocity to switch between left and right hands and get fast swinging close to the ground. Not to mention the venom boost and crazy skills you can do in the air with miles morales. I will get to your other points soon in another reply but just wanted to address that first because it's just objectively not true.

Yes you have a lot of hands holding but you also have the most advanced swinging in any game

@NEStalgia I do think the story is a top-tier one, it made me tear up at the end but the lack of depth in the world is something that I absolutely did not enjoy. When your whole world is just skyscrapers and trees, it can never be defendable.

Had to crank up the difficulty to Ultimate as the combat was very forgiving but boy did I sweat when it was increased. I do like the combat, feel like it has enough depth and please be serious, it runs rings around inFamous' combat. I absolutely love inFamous. There aren't THAT many QTEs outside those open world activities. Yes there are a few in missions but its not like everywhere you run its a QTE. Interactive movie? No, absolutely not. Do you want them to remove all the cutscenes?

Again, the point isn't so much that wow look at a modern day NY city, its more so the immersion you get from looking at the comics or movies and now you can control Spider-Man in those settings. I do agree the world is absolutely barren. I have no incentive to be there, other than to witness the story, combat, challenges and after that, to get my plat.

This is a great game with some niggling problems that mostly stem from open world fatigue. Its that whole, 'well we can't make a big, expensive, popular game and not have it take at least 60-80 hours to finish everything. So lets add repetitive and not fun stuff to it'. Sadly I think the second one will have some elements of that to it as it is an open world game. There is no open world game that I've played that doesn't have this issue.

I absolutely disagree that this game isn't fun. Squealing like a child for weeks after I first played it. You can acknowledge the shortcomings without *******ng on the game my friend. There is so much more to that game other than how much parts of it absolutely suck (to which I am in agreement) that you have not brought up

Definitely disagree almost across the board. The swinging is tedious, repetitive and uninteresting. Yes you can do those things, but they're not really fucntional or useful, it's just a toy to play with, which I admit, it was really fun at the beginning. It became much less fun by the middle. And by Miles it was just infuriating. The combat, the core combat is QTEs! Yes, I know Rocksteady did it with Arkham but if Ryse sun of Rome gets panned for it's attack/block/pary playing like QTEs, Spiderman absolutely deserves the same treatment. They're more similar than different. It's hard to compare the combat specifically to inFamous, but inFamous has awesome superhero powers that have you shooting area effect lightning from your fingertips. Spiderman has "triangle to counter". (Or whatever button, I haven't played since 2020!) Yeah, I know different hero different abilities, but, pure fun goes to inFamous. Having said that, I was referring ot the open world more than the combat with the comparison to inFamous.

With the interactive movie part, if you remove the open world, which is almost completely unused other than to say it's there, it largely just feels like running from cutscene to cutscene. I suppose XVI proves people like that, but I think there's a pacing to games where games like SM lean too hard into movie-with-gameplay rather than game-with-cutscenes. I know it's going for that on purpose in this case, but it's still a critique.

BUT I also admit that the dismally barren world, absolutely colored my perception of everything else in the game. If the world were utilized, diverse, and had something than "perform QTE to stop robbers/chase car 500000 times" I may have enjoyed the total package more, but that aspect just felt so dire, it absolutely just fouls the mood around the rest of it. At one point in Miles I got trapped inside one of the non-enterable storefronts somehow. It was hilarious, I clipped through the wall, I'm exploring the interior. They built the entire interior of the building and then put an invisible wall around it so you can't enter unless you clip through it!

I did squeal for weeks when I got miles but that was because it's use of the new PS5 adaptive triggers during swinging was causing early age arthritis.

"There's much more to the game than the parts that absolutely suck" LOL, there's the back of the box quote right there!

Seriously though, I'm not "*******ng" on the game, honestly. I'm heavily criticizing it because you asked what my issues with it were, but I don't actually believe it's a truly bad game, it's a game that simply by being a Marvel game wasn't likely to be for me, but I bought in because I trust Insomniac to deliver fun despite the franchise it licensed but in the end my opinion is it leaned far harder into usual licensed game tropes than I expected and for all the reasons above just failed to deliver the Insomniac fun I expected and left disappointed. I even bought Forspoken, lol! But I probably will not buy SM2, at least not for years until it's like $15-25 or something. I've played 1.5 of them and just didn't have a great time like I'd have expected with an Insomniac game. Plus I'll have a chip on my shoulder about it for probably replacing another inFamous from being made, lol.