While I was surfing my news sites this morning I came across a story on Eurogamer that showcased a 7 year old E3 demo of Halo 2 and it got me thinking.

The demo was cool but according to Bungie itself, a game produced with that engine was never a possibility. Did I type that correctly? Yes I did..and if you’re under the impression it’s an opinion and not a fact, you’re just the kind of consumer E3 is looking for.

E3, the premiere expo for bombshells from the gaming world is a medium for gaming companies to completely misrepresent reality to try to sell a game/peripheral. Bold statement? Not really.

For years the hype machines have revved up for E3. You can compare it to the yearly auto expo up in Detroit. Auto makers parade “concept” cars that look cool and provide awesome features that everyone wants but will never see.  Why should the gaming industry be different?  I wish I could answer that with a straight forward and well thought-out reply but I can’t because thinking about it just angers me.

I can understand concept proposals, sometimes referred to as “a pitch”. “Hype or press” produced at what is now supposed to be a media only event is also not beyond me either, but what I don’t get is the consumers desire to eat up what can only be described as pipe dreams. I remember when this “demo” hit the net and everyone was drooling at what can pretty easily be described as “next gen on old gen”.  Loads of disappointment and seven years later we get the truth from Bungie.

“We were building stuff that just couldn’t be played, in any engine,” revealed Chris Butcher, engineering lead on Halo 2. “We built, and detailed, and went a huge way down the path with a whole bunch of environments and levels for the game that just totally didn’t make it.”

“If you look at the level with the Flood, inside the quarantine area – that is the remaining 20 per cent of a gargantuan, sprawling level that was meticulously built and hand-constructed, but that could never, ever have shipped in any engine.”

I don’t know about you but I find that offensive.  In the auto sales industry they call that the bait and switch, oh and it’s illegal in every state in the U.S.A. (I will consult our euro members to find out if screwing consumers is legal in their countries.)

With 2 months until E3, the PR teams are gearing up to push the next big thing.  Or at least the next big fictional thing.  So what does that mean for you?  Will this year be different? Will we see gameplay video instead of cinematics designed to get people in the audience screaming? If we do see gameplay will it be real? I think the best thing we can do is be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.

Let me know what you think of the gaming industry’s hype machine set to blow your mind June 14-17th, 2010.