At some point last week, after watching my 100th video game trailer as part of the loosely connected series of livestreamed showcases that have replaced E3, I started to lose the will. “Wholesome” indie games featuring frogs, gritty action games, low poly PS1-era nostalgia platformers and samey mega-franchises all started to bleed into each other. Am I even capable of getting excited about video game announcements any more? Isn’t this just an endless series of adverts?
Of course, the E3 press conferences of yore were ultimately adverts, too, but they were at least adverts for video games, without commercials for delivery apps or fast food shoehorned in. And if a game was shown during a Nintendo, Xbox or PlayStation presentation, it was because they thought it might encourage people to buy their console, not because the developer paid a fee to have their trailer held up in front of monetisable eyeballs.
