Kyle Orland’s Workblog

Imagine a rock concert. The loudest rock concert you’ve ever been to. Make it a little louder, just for good measure.

Throw it into a Las Vegas casino, except instead of the glitz of Vegas you’re in the middle of the decay that is Los Angeles; and instead of jangling coins and neon there are surround sound explosions and endless rows of flashing video monitors.

Stir in a good-sized dollop of siege-mentality warfare, complete with realistic sound effects and panicked jostling for limited resources.

Add in a little dash of sci-fi convention decoration and just a pinch of overpriced food.

Dump in tens of thousands of bewildered, sweaty males (sprinkled with a few scantily-clad booth babes and fully-clothed female PR reps for flavor).

Shake well.

Welcome to E3.

Now, try writing a story in this mess.

(full story)

"Many of the bloggers have outside jobs — a security guard at a New Jersey casino, an 18-year veteran in the Canadian Army, an event organizer for a Buddhist foundation. They don’t claim to be journalists, because they think being a blogger, quite frankly, is better. ("It’s journalism without the rules. It’s more opinionated," says Kyle Orland, who runs the Video Game Media Watch on VGMWatch.com.) Many do it for free, and the battle to break a story about a game or score an exclusive interview with a game designer is fierce, though entirely virtual."

(full article)

Contest winner J.T. ruins the first Game Rag podcast.

(watch podcast)

At this week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, all the major game system manufacturers — Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo — took the wraps off powerful new hardware and software that make games more realistic in look and feel.

(full article)