I don't think I've ever been less excited for June/E3 season. There's usually at least one showcase I'm really looking forward to but my expectations are abysmal this year.
My excitement for this not-E3 period has cratered for a couple of reasons;
1. There are just way too many events now. There's about 4 livestreams every day with random selections of indies and smaller publishers doing their own thing. All the information is diffused and it would be an absolute chore to keep up with all of it. And that's before we talk about how utterly bloated and eye-roll inducing so many of these presentations can be. Imagine sitting through another PC gaming show. Or does anyone remember that Realms Deep thing from last year? I do understand that indies need as much exposure as they can get and in the old days getting into a presentation from the big 3 was possibly too hard, but now there are 30 different events and I'm not inclined to watch any of them anymore.
2. Everything leaks. There are no surprises anymore. Stuff used to leak in the past as well but nowhere near on the scale that it does now. These days we have clout chasers like Jeff Grubb and Tom Henderson who will tell you everything given enough time. It's extra annoying when they're trying to be coy about it. Grubb's latest leak is that Dragon Age Dreadwolf won't be at Keighley's show but Dragon Age will be. That's him definitely not revealing a remaster/remake that's incoming. Someone on Twitter shared a clip of that time when Sony revealed the new God of War at E3 a few years ago. No one saw that coming and everyone cheered when Kratos stepped out of the shadows. You just cannot have moments like that these days.
It's a real shame... I actually preferred E3 where all the announcements were concentrated within the 3-5 major shows and you at least had some reason to look forward to what was going to be revealed.
It's wild seeing how people flip flop about stuff.
Some stuff that has happened. You do have that whole thing with the Dorito Pope and about how a lot of people had to "wrap stuff up". Which is dumb for a number of things but I do also find it dumb how that's what people choose to complain about. Dang how dare you not let Nintendo devs (producers) and others give a proper speech. When well that didn't really matter much seeing how they were far more focused on other stuff, they even went very quickly through a bunch of awards as of they were. Side thoughts. This has been the case for a few years now.
Not to defend the Dorito Pope but the guy got so much unwarranted criticism for the show last year. It was, again, from people who either do not understand reality or just refuse to accept it. So many people were upset that ads and promotions got more time than the awards but that's what pays for the whole show to begin with. I remember there was that skit with a muppet that people were unhappy with and it's like, do you think Keighley woke up one morning in July and decided he wanted a muppet at his game awards show? No, he went to someone to ask for money and their condition was that there must be a segment with the muppet. Do you think it was his life's ambition to do a promotion for a 15% Grubhub coupon? No, but that is what pays for renting out a theatre and hiring a whole production team and a whole technical team that is livestreaming the program simultaneously on 10 platforms and so on. Everything in the world got more expensive in the last couple of years. Why would you think that wouldn't apply to the TGAs?
As for prompts asking the winners to wrap up their speeches, that's fairly common in many award ceremonies. Even the Oscars have it. And that's before Chris Judge poisoned the well with his speech the previous year. Even so, Keighley admitted that he could have done it better so the vitriol he kept receiving was ridiculous. And, to be blunt, award acceptance speeches really should just be about thanking your team, your family, your partners and such. It really isn't the place for sharing anecdotes about development and pontificating about other matters. That's part of the social contract of award shows.
And since we're being blunt, nobody who is watching actually cares about the awards to begin with. Maybe the platform warriors do because "Hey my Nintendo game beat your Sony game in the GOTY category" but that's about it. The majority of people watching are watching for the new game trailers. And the proof is that if he tried to do just an awards show without the promotions the whole enterprise would collapse, and everybody knows that.