Sony Opens E3, Makes Community Feel at Home
June 1, 2009 -
If any gaming company out there wants to take notes about how you involve and build a positive community relationship, tonight’s Sony PSBlog was purely academic. A couple of weeks back the folks over at the PS Blog announced their tweet up and added the caveat that “Major hardcore PS fans should arrive for a special gift”. Free swag is given away all the time at these events, especially surrounding E3.
I made the mistake of trying to pick up my badge holder this afternoon and ended up going to the wrong hall of the LACC. I arrived to Mama’s Hot Tamales 7 minutes late and was greeted by the expected. Loud music blaring from inside the small East LA Tamale jointand a line wrapping around the corner of eager PS fans waiting to get in. A man in front of me with his two kids went to the front of the line to assess the situation. He came back and sadly explained that it appeared they were checking in 1 person a minute and T-shirts for Uncharted 2 were about to run out. With only a two hour event and about 100 people ahead of us the math dictated that at the current pace we’d be getting in to the event, as Mama’s Hot Tamales was being cleaned up and closed.
A funny thing then happened, like the door of opportunity swinging open for those who had already registered for the press briefing with Sony that is to take place on Tuesday morning did not have to wait in line. Maybe having a media badge was going to pay off earlier than expected at this E3. Little did we or the people outside know just how much their wait was going to be worth it. Inside the event was the usual fare. Fans were genuinely displaying their excitement at their chance to rub elbows with the Sony and Slant Six, getting PSPs signed, and talking with each other regarding their past experience in SOCOM.
I had just sat down to try some of SOCOM Fire Team Bravo 3’s cooperative multiplayer for myself when Jeff Rubenstein called attention to the crowd for a special announcement:
In case you didn’t hear that well or correctly, the abnormally long registration process of producing IDs and whatnot was so that those who showed their dedication to this industry we all love in showing up to the PS Blog event not only were given an invitation normally reserved for the press, but were invited after to stop by the registration booth inside the LACC because they were being given passes to E3 itself. As a gamer, if someone told you to go a meet up of any kind and it would get you passes into Sony’s E3 Press Conference on Tuesday morning, how long would you have waited in line?
How many times more than that would you have waited to get into E3 just for showing up to a community meet up? I probably would have spent hours in the afternoon hanging outside Mama’s Hot Tamale for an opportunity like this. I think for the father and two kids I spent a bit of time waiting in line with would attest, the wait was well worth it.
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