E3: The Funeral - The Full Transcript

Author: by Staff, Brandon Sheffield

On the eve of the final day of E3, Gamecock held a 'funeral procession' for the much-changed event, which wound its way from the Santa Monica pier to Venice Beach, Calif. The procession was complete with drums, a horn section, a Chinese dragon, and masked performers on stilts. After getting a few words from Gamecock's Mike Wilson on just why he was wearing a hospital gown to the procession, some prepared (and not so prepared) speeches took place. We thought it would be worth preserving them for posterity, since they show a sense of fun and passion for games that shine out above the publicity stunt itself. Gamasutra now presents a full transcription of the event, which was led by flamboyant MC Leonard R. Leonard: Leonard R. Leonard: E3 was sort of, ah… symbolic of what is right and wrong with life itself. Am I the only person that felt that way? (Laughter) I got this gig because my career was doing very well. And what I wanted to do was, I was a lifelong E3-goer and I love video games, as obviously all of you do. And to me, today is sort of the death of something old and the birth of something new. And with birth, you have hope that over time, we can take the Wall Street schmoes and kick ‘em in the nuts. (Whoops, cheers, amens) Take your triple-bogeying ass off the golf course and out of our lives! (Applause) That is, unless they want to buy my company. And if so, I’ll be right over here after – kidding, I don’t have a company. It’s really easy to point the blame. Is creativity dead? I’m looking at a lot of faces out here that will determine that, over the next ten years. A lot of you people out here are creators of these games, and some companies — one, I know very well — are trying to actually create a process where you get the control, you get the chance, you get the opportunity to put your ideas to work. I’m sounding like a boring guy right now, but that is the truth — and we do hope that this encourages you, somehow, in all its tomfoolery and all its magnificence, and all its music and all its intention, to let you feel in your own mind that you’re capable of your highest ability. And that’s really what it’s about. And that’s all the friggin’ sermon I got. (More cheers, amens) I’d like to open it up now to anyone who would like to come up and share any story we might have about E3 or the demise of a close friend. (Laughter, applause) SUC: The Spark Unlimited Choir would like to bid farewell to E3 with a little ditty sung to the tune of Old MacDonald. Are we ready? Once there was a huge trade show, it was called E3; Bright and loud and in the know, no more swag for me! With a big hit here, and a sure flop there; Here a hit, there a flop, everywhere a halter top; Now that trade show is no more, booth babes wander free; Now there is a new trade show, EIEIO! (Applause) LRL: Do we have anyone else who would like to jump up and say something before we close up this procession? Fred Schmidt: I’d like to say something… My name is Fred Schmidt; I was with NCSoft until recently, and thanks to our musical and performance accompaniment troupe here, “Mutaytor”, we were somewhat responsible, perhaps, for pushing the edge of the envelope last year — well, the last two years — at E3, and got shut down. Actually, I was personally fined five thousand dollars by EA management, or EA — Hah! Freudian slip! We got fined by them too, but that paid dividends, though… ESA, they fined us five thousand dollars for a little too much, uh, cleavage, too much skin, too much noise… (Cheers) Mutaytor, they just took it over the top and that was the end, next we heard - the end of the industry, the end of the tradeshow, the end of my job, the end of everything. So I just wanna salute the folks at Gamecock Media, because they, I think, more than anybody, really embody right now what the spirit of the industry needs to be again, which is creativity, independence and freedom. (Cheers) That’s what it’s all about, in the film industry and the music industry and the game industry, and we’re gonna bring it back again, alright? (Applause) I don’t know who or when again, exactly, but I’m predicting maybe next year, if we’re lucky. I’ve been working on it for the whole last year, talking to everybody I can. But I’m predicting there’s going to be an “E Mach 7” coming back to Las Vegas for a week with three days of a “kind of subdued trade show,” where those of us who have to wear suits will have to wear suits and take care of the pressing-of-the-flesh business. Then we send all the suits home, we rebuild the booths for a day, and then we come back and do three days of public show, open it up to the world, and I think we’ll have two hundred thousand people flying in for twenty-four hours of gaming three, four days in a row in Las Vegas. So I think that might get us to where we need to go, and I think Gamecock is going to lead the way to get us there. (Cheers, applause) [Above picture courtesy Kotaku, which has a full E3 funeral gallery - Gamasutra senior editor Brandon Sheffield pictured.] UPDATE: Gamecock has kindly sent us an additional embedded video with footage of the E3 funeral taking places, as follows: