There is an American mythology built around summertime. These myths are built around a post-1950s suburban fantasy filled with bicycles, a lack of parental supervision, the essential enterprise of the lemonade stand, and the oppressive heat that beats down on tweens across a continent from the school-less months of June to August. The 1980s summertime dream enshrined in the films of Steven Spielberg has disappeared, and of course it was never really there for so many of us. These myths are fueled by a powerful nostalgia for a desired past that might or might not have been there.
It is appropriate that here, in the weeks that can only be described as the gateway to summer, we find the Electronic Entertainment Expo (or E3). Started in 1995, E3 is an unparalleled industry event for videogames marketing. When I write “videogames marketing,” I’m being specific on purpose, as there is no event where videogame hardware and software makers make such a targeted appeal to videogame journalists and the consumers who depend on those journalists. E3 is the heart of hype, and the production value of the show increases every year, drawing more and more consumers into the heart of the show (which is closed to the public) through live streams, concurrently-released trailers and specific game showcases.
E3 has long drawn ire from certain sectors of the wide world of videogame consumers. It has become the universal symbol for the excesses of the contemporary videogame industry and the desire to reproduce itself over and over in slightly different iterations. It is a heartless machine that pumps out excitement and eradicates difference in its continual reproduction of the same thing: A new Call of Duty or another immersive experience unlike any experience before seems to be the eternal return of an industry that is out of new ideas (and would be unwilling to take risks on them if they had any.) E3 is where frontline software battles take place in decade-long console wars. E3, in an air-conditioned stadium that keeps out the worst of Los Angeles’ heat, feeds off the same powerful nostalgia that makes our summer mythology so palpable. “Do you remember retreating from the worst of the sun to play Mario for days on end?” E3 asks. “If so, have some more Mario.” Or more Master Chief. Or more Samus Aran. Or more Beefy McManshooter.
It is out of frustration with this eternal reproduction that Indie3 has been born.
I watched it appear as it appeared. Game developer TJ Thomas tweeted the hashtag #indie3; a twitter account was made (@projectindie3); organizers popped up and began calling for panel submissions. It seemed to appear organically from nothing other than a deep dissatisfaction with the current state of things. If E3 is a behemoth, gaining force as it becomes ever more dense with prestige and advertising dollars as the years roll on, then why not something else? Why not an event that points at something other than the biggest releases that we’ll be seeing TV commercials, banner ads and shortform documentaries on for the next two years?
“E3 is presented as something that’s impossible to ignore, huge and defining for the games industry, press and critics,” co-organizer Aevee Bee, Paste contributor and game critic, told me over email. “Big budget and big spectacle, it’s incredibly aggressive at demanding your attention, no matter how reluctant you are to give it. It inflates the importance of corporate marketing, new hardware and big budget sequels.”