Twitter Didn't Kill E3...You Did.

Last week, I never heard and read so many journalist complain about one thing...in unison.  "If it weren't for Twitter, E3 would have had a much bigger impact on me." The reality is, because of the internet as a whole, leaks and breaking news have been scooping our witty, games enthusiast scoopers.  It is great to see the spectacle that is E3 return, but in all honesty, in this age of 'nowism' [wanting to know everything instantly even at the cost of accuracy] how can a microblogging site like Twitter be the fault of the leaks which were going to leak baring the sites existence?

Unfortunately, I was one of the many writers/enthusiast that could not attend E3 this year, but thanks to video streaming sites and Twitter it was almost as if I had the best seat in the house; my home.  The weeks leading up to E3 you would see the occasional 'rumor' story and a corporate video leak of insert-Sony-product.  The E3 of old, early 2000 and prior, has this mystique to the veteran enthusiast press and industry execs.  It is talked about as if there was this golden-era of E3, which I do not discount, but it is almost referencing some form of 1950's style of reporting.  This age, this style came from the gigantic bridge a journalist had to mend when delivering these 'cutting edge' stories about press conferences, technological innovation and most importantly, video games. At the time news travelled considerably slower than it does now in the age of the tweet.  Journalists could get away with sub-par or uninteresting writing simply because they were delivering content to an audience that had limited access to the source material.  An argument could be made that this 'limited access' still exists today, it is more dependant on an internet connection rather than a magazine subscription.

When you put it in perspective, it really is just about technology and video games.  This unwillingness to accept the credibility of blogs and now the newest innovation; micro-blogs seems to be counter productive and incredibly whiny.  The games industry is built on technological advancement and delivering said tech to people in the simplest manner.  If Twitter can sum up a journalist's overly wordy article within 140 characters then why do we not point the finger at the journalist? Why not point the finger in how the media is being delivered?

When I am agreeing with Sony's Jack Tretton, I know the apocalypse is not far off.  There is no loyalty in big business.  Why is it expected there be loyalty in reporting about big business? I am not [completely] dense.  I know why sites wanted to break the PS3 Slim story faster than lightening striking.  Established gaming and tech sites want to give off the impression of how relevant they still are, where up-and-coming blogs want to attain relevancy.  In this regard, this is actually quite an 'old school mentality' of reporting. Scoop first or be scooped.  The problem with this would be: is what's being reported actually news? Is how the information being delivered in a unique voice?

This built in angst for Twitter and people [like me] who used it to voice their snap judgements of the E3 event should be seen for what it was.  Another manner of delivering content a select group of people who wanted to enjoy [and I hope you guys did!].  This should not detract from actual journalism, from research and face-to-face interviews, in depth stories and articles.  If you feel like the Twitter links from various companies and media outlets dulled the impact of software and tech being revealed for the first time, then maybe you've been spending too much time sifting through tweets. Maybe instead of focussing on exclusive and megaton-reveals you could have written creatively about how this could effect the market in general.

Perspective, if you are writing about tech or video games, then you should know it is about personality.  News happens just as fast as the technology delivering it, if you have a problem with the technology, then perhaps you need to step your game up.