late night

If there's a particularly ugly period of time each year that reoccurs across the Games industry, it's March through May. Mid-May is when the Electronic Entertainment Expo (or E3 as it's commonly called) violently jumps up into the face of Retailers, Buyers, and Gaming Press alike with a vicious barrage of lights, sound, and scantily clad booth babes (something the folks who run E3 are trying to crack down on, and a move I support - but that's a whole different issue). Anyway, big new games make their big new debuts at E3 amidst all of the loud, flashing distractions and they tend to make their debuts as largely as possible.

So, each year, the time period leading up to E3 is a time of extreme spit and polish for companies working on anything slated to make its debut. With a good showing at E3 often meaning purchase orders, marketing deals, and uber shelf space in mega-retailers like Target, Best Buy, and the Marts (Wal- and K-, respectively) from deals frequently made a year or more out from the projected release date, making your game kick ass on the Show Floor is a top priority for most companies. If you're showing more than one game, that just means you have to spit shine that much more content to get it all rockin'.

So, we're spit shining stuff. I can't really mention any of what we're doing - not until it actually shows at E3. But, what I can say is that Audio frequently is the last department to the party because everything Audio needs to react to is still being developed until the 11th hour. We frequently get requests for demos, videos, online trailers, website sound effects and music edits - anything you can think of that would sell a game - tossed our way with a ridiculously short turn around time attached to it.

Take tonight for instance. There's something really important being done around here and it's due tomorrow at 9 AM. When did I find out about it? 11 AM today. When will I get to start working on it today? The current projected time is 8 PM. So, it's gonna' be a rough night.

Thankfully, E3 only happens once a year.