Igniting its thirtieth birthday this June. A decade past. Three. It’s a lot of years to be a website, honestly. Owned by Ziff Davis. That CNET parent. The kind of corporate machinery that usually screams for attention but here delivers the goods.
June 6th and 7th. Los Angeles.
When and Where
The Magic Box. Down in the Reef part of downtown. June 6 kicks off at 9 a.m. PT. Midday Eastern. Five hours of gaming chaos. Then five more the next day. 5 p.m. closing time. Lights out.
It replaces E3 in spirit, at least. E3 is dead. Long live E3? No, E3 is gone. Summer Game Fest exists but it’s invite only. Industry types sipping warm water. IGN Live? Open door policy. Anime kids, collectibles nerds, pop culture fans. All welcome.
The Price of Entry
Twenty-five bucks. For Saturday. Another twenty-five for Sunday. Cheap? Sure. Is it free? No.
Want both days. Forty dollars. Get a swag bag too. Plastic trash usually. Maybe a keychain.
Have a promo code? CNET10 cuts it down. Fifteen for one day. Thirty for the whole weekend. Use it if you can. Math works.
Screens Everywhere
Not going in person? Fine. Nobody forces you. The streams happen on the IGN site. YouTube too. Twitch, naturally. Livestreaming isn’t a mystery anymore. It’s the baseline.
Games are better when you can see the reaction face, not just the pixels.
What’s Playing?
Demonstrate this. Demonstrate that. Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced. It’s there. Try it. Gothic is getting remade too. Niche title? Maybe. Big enough for a booth though.
Microsoft has a showcase on Sunday. June 7. Gears of War brings an E-Day direct. Lots of shooters. Always lots of shooters.
Hundreds of demos. Indie darlings to AAA behemoths. Tournaments run all day. Giveaways for the lucky. Merch booths selling the things you didn’t need yesterday but now feel compelled to buy.
Faces and Voices
Who shows up matters. Sung Kang comes to town. Tokyo Drift. Fast Five. He runs fast. Probably.
Then the voices. The real stars. Roger Craig Smith is Sonic. Always has been. Patricia Summersett? Princess Zelda. If you know, you know. Steve-O from Jackass. Chaos personified. Bronson Reed and Kevin Owens from WWE. They bring the muscle. Tatiana Maslany brings Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed hype. Alix Wilton Regan is the new Lara Croft. Legacy of Atlantis. Fresh legs.
Animation isn’t sleeping. Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War gets time. The Legend of Vox Machina. The Terror Devil in Silver. Voice actors might drift in and out. No guarantee.
Movies? A look at Supergirl. The Vampire Lestat lingers. The Walking Dead: Dead City continues its walk. Even Adventure Time gets in with Side Quests. First two episodes. Kids remember. Grownups do too.
It’s messy. It’s loud. It’s June.
