ESA: E3 Changing, No Large Show Floor

"E3 is dead. Long live E3.

Why is everyone so sad about this? This is the best news ever. E3 has been a farce for a few years now, filled with fanboys who clog up the aisles as they run around trying to get schwag. A four-hour wait to play on the Wii is a joke, a sign that too many non-industry types had gotten in.

I've covered the event three times and I can say that all the flash and dazzle just makes it that much harder to get the information out. Why should journalists have to wait for some rude kid to get his own impressions of a game? If anything, this should improve the coverage that the individual games can get.

The other crucial element is that the development teams don't have to worry about an E3 build. Just let them worry about making the final game, not some demo level.

Don't cry about the carnival being over. It was overblown anyway."

by fungus amungus

New E3 By Invitation Only

"Well there goes me ever making it to another E3 ever again. I can't say I miss the toil it put on my system, but I can say I'll miss being able to do what I want when I want since I scheduled things myself. I'd think with scaling things back you won't be able to do that so much anymore, or in my case at all since I'm pretty low on the totem in the games industry. :: sigh ::"

by Nintendo Gal

E3 is Dead; Long Live PAX

"so for folks who've been to PAX, does it have the same stench that's so often associated with E3?"

by ach77

Japan Wants Oblivion... In Japanese!

"Hey. I'm one of the junior writers at BioWare, and I thought I'd throw in my thoughts on this. All numbers used in this post are for sake of example, and should not be construed as actual budgets for anything. I'm going by ballpark figures and what I've managed to overhear from our localization team. Any errors or omissions are my own, not the company's, and not our publisher's. Disclaim, disclaim. ^_^

I suspect, based on my admittedly limited knowledge, that the cost comments are correct. Last I heard translation cost 5-25 cents per word, per language. Asian languages tend to be more expensive (and require special programming consideration) because they don't use the Arabic character set that French, German, or Spanish would.

I don't know how many words are in Oblivion, but for sake of example let's say 500,000. That's about 1/3 Baldur's Gate 2, and I think twice Jade Empire. That would cost $25,000 to $125,000 to translate. Using very rough numbers, it costs around $12 to manufacture a game box. The publisher sells the box to a distributor for $25. The distributor puts it on shelves for $50. So for each copy sold, the publisher is only making about $12.50.

They have 250 signatures, but using these example numbers a publisher would have to sell 2000 - 10,000 copies just to break even on localization costs. That's not including any potential costs for shipping, packaging, remastering, or (god forbid) voice acting. Voice acting is far more expensive than text localization - for dialogue-heavy RPGs it can double the cost of development. An actor costs anywhere from a few hundred to tens of thousands a day, depending on who you get.

Localizing is never throwing players a bone. It's more like throwing them a pile of Kobe steaks. I'm sure there are ways to cut cost, and as a would-be Sakura Taisen player, I understand the pain of being unable to play a game you want. But everything costs money, and given the apparenly weak sales of the 360 in Japan, the decision to pass on localization of a big RPG doesn't particularly surprise me."

by Stormwaltz

The Triforce Construction Vechicle

"Their website www.apexcstenn.com offers no details on upcoming wii smash bros. characters. I'm not impressed with their nintendo knowledge."

by bv

Forget Blu-ray, PlayStation 4 Won't Play Actual Discs

"I hate this trend. There's so many issues I have with this concept besides the length of time to download. For example, hard drive storage capacity and hard drive failures. I don't want to purchase have to purchase multiple hard drives to store games, when it all could be done very easily with disc media.

I like having a game collection that I can look st and play with ease. Not fumble around why I plug in my other 100GB hard drive that has Final Fanasy XV on it.

I am materialistic and I have an incessant need to coddle all my shiny discs of silicon."

by Kdawg

Want to comment? Bad? Drop us a line at tips@kotaku.com and say whatcha gotta say.