Maybe it’s Paradox’s fault for not having a floor display but instead hiding in a tiny box to the far right of one of the halls. But there is zero reason for the E3 critics not nominating either Hearts of Iron 3 or East India Company for best strategy game of show.
Especially when they only bothered to fill four of five slots.
Troy
It’s too bad, but looking at the history of those awards it is no surprise. They basically never nominate anything that doesn’t already have a big developer or publisher cheering it on.
And with both Paradox games clearly better than anything R.U.S.E. could turn into…
Especially with the “competition” that was nominated. Too bad for Paradox, I guess.
Don’t you just love how the bullshit creeps into something that began as naively as videogames?
Of course it would be naive as well to think that something that moves the amount of money it does would be free of this kind of crap and back scratching (if you are pessimistic about it), but still…
Perhaps it’s just me exposing my cynicism again, but it seems to me that a nomination/award might just be a price feature. Pay for a small booth – no nods. Sink money into a big booth – the E3 folks make sure you get in on the awards. They might as well just list a price right out :)
I could be wrong.
“Sink money into a big booth – the E3 folks make sure you get in”
Alas, I tend to think the problem is less sinister, simply the lack of effort and interest by most game journalists to look at the smaller guys. It’s so easy to be spoon-fed the details from the big publishers, and ignore everything else. Compare the type of discussions at a site like this to what most of the “big media” gaming sites cover and you can easily see the difference.
Yeah, I think George has it right. With the end of Kentia Hall, especially, marginal stuff gets even harder to find at E3 and unless you know it’s there you won’t go looking for it.