This E3 was interesting... So many announcements, so little to show. I'm a die hard Final Fantasy VII fan, heavily involved in the game's modding scene, and yet I wasn't excited or annoyed by the remake announcement. I was ambivalent, because they had nothing to show. Shenmue and its sequel are among my favorite games, but I couldn't bring myself to care because again, nothing to show.
Only one game actually got my attention, got me legitimately excited: Super Mario Maker. This was a huge surprise because, after previous showings, I'd already written it off as little more than a curiosity. What they'd shown in the past did not seem like it would be especially powerful, and kinda came across as a bare minimum effort for a $15 release. And then I saw the NWC footage. The physics and movesets actually matched the source games; it wasn't just different skins over NSMB. I saw pipes and doors, both things I thought they wouldn't bother with. The next day, I saw editor footage, with Lakitus that can throw arbitrary items, and with a whole bunch of features clearly locked off. "This is going to be powerful," I thought. "This is going to be what I hoped for, rather than what I first expected."
So there you have it. My game of E3. The one that actually showed off the game itself as it might be played by real players, instead of a carefully paced demo. Other studios would do well to follow suit; show us the game proper. Even if not the whole thing, even if just a slice, show us something representative of what we'll experience if we buy it, not something that looks like cutscenes and setpiece moments. The people who follow E3 can smell bullshit from a mile away, and are going to be more receptive to real content.[footnote]Except for No Man's Sky. I was really glad when it was shown, because it was real gameplay and looked like it could be fun, but it also looked incomplete as hell. Showing off half-finished systems, such as destructible terrain that doesn't destroy smoothly, leaves a bad impression. Gameplay is good, much better than cutscenes and trailers, but it needs to be polished gameplay.[/footnote]
P.S. Thanks