So I’m officially done with E3 for this year. I have something to do Thursday and would not exchange that for E3 if I could. I had an amazing time, and I hope to be back again next year. But as I drove home I spent some time thinking about E3 and my position in it.

It’s hard to be getting a good look at games with just an industry/gamer pass. As such a goal for next year would be to get a media badge. It would be a big get for me, but it’s a big target that means I have to grow the site quite a bit. I already have a good following and appreciate everyone who already reads the site.

There were less giveaways this year but there were far better games to look and see. Personally as much as I like the giveaways

This year’s E3 had some hours that were industry/media only, 3 hours each day, it made it simple to see a lot of games quickly, sadly during general admissions I didn’t get to see as much as lines grew to almost three times the size in a matter of minutes. However, even so, there’s enough stuff that even industry people can’t get into, as it’s media only and you need to set up appointments.

In addition, I’ll admit, I’m not good at talking to publishers and media, I have to get better at that, that’s a personal goal. It’s an odd situation to find yourself in. Though generating those relationships will help the site and readers as it means I’ll have more access to newer games without me having to go out and buy every single one.

People might wonder “Isn’t it better to buy every game yourself?” and question my bias, and it’s a hard question. If I had the money I totally would buy every game, but even then I have limited time. Right now I have a pretty bad selection bias. I play games I want to play and that I own, which means in some way I selected them or had them selected for me. That means most of my games will be a positive review because if the game looks awful I likely wouldn’t even have it on my list. Having access to newer games helps me to get more attention, but having access to games I am not selecting through research would also mean I get to warn people away from games they might not enjoy.

You can even see an example from E3, I played a ton of games and they’re almost all “good” and I enjoyed them. Well, part of the reason is I chose games I wanted to play, so I already weeded out the games that might get a negative reaction from me. I’m ok with that, but I think as a reviewer I should look to play a more diverse set of games.

It would be useful to be able to talk about newer games, there are a few games coming out soon on this list and it would be great to have First looks/Last Looks, and reviews for them. But most of the time that requires a developer relationship and they’ll look at my site. I have a very strong Curator site on Steam, though I can always have more followers. But they’ll look at my Twitter and Youtube page as well.

So I have to ask one thing of anyone still reading this. If you are a fan of my writing or site and want to help me grow, add me on Steam, Twitter, and Youtube, the more subscribers I have, the better I’ll look to companies and it’ll help me in the future, and ultimately mean I’ll get more interesting games to play. I will always focus on getting indies, as well as AAA games. So all I ask is you give me a follow and subscribe even if it’s not an account you use often. Likes and everything else is appreciated as well, but followers and subscribers are easy numbers for me to point to, and it means I can get earlier games, or just more diverse games.

So I ended up not going to Microsoft’s theater, or PlayStation’s booth, The former was across the street and I already had enough to do at the main venue. With the latter, I didn’t get appointments through their app and again had enough games to play.

With that being said, let’s take one more look at the show and figure out an E3 2018 Game of the Show.

Here are my rules.

1. I have to have physically played the game (versus watching someone play).

2. It can be for any platform, even though I currently only review Steam games, this wasn’t a PC only show.

3. It should be the game I’m the most excited for, the one I want to buy.

4. Finally, it’s purely subjective, and non-binding. If tomorrow it turns out the game is terrible, I’m only judging it on the presentation of what I saw and felt in E3 2018. I won’t take away the award.

To narrow it down, my top three are probably Dragon Quest XI, Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, and Kingdom Hearts 3.

There are other games I enjoyed but I think those three were the ones I was most excited for. Dragon Quest XI was more of a series that I really enjoyed. Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, I was terrible at. Kingdom Hearts 3 had its flaws but had a lot of things that made me fanboy over the experience.

Ultimately there was one game at the show that I feel I HAVE to own. It was the one game I told myself I wasn’t that excited for when it was announced, that I went to play just to see how it is and I remember how solid the series is. My E3 2018 Game of the Show is….

Super Smash Brothers Ultimate

There are a lot of good games that I played this year and I have shared everything I played with you. There are quite a few games I hope to pick up soon, like Mega Man X Legacy. But Super Smash Brother Ultimate was fun to play, and it’s probably the obvious choice for game of the show. It’s a great party game, and hopefully, it’ll have a lot to do for the single player, but at the end of the day, the game I would have walked out of the hall with if I could is Smash Brothers.

So here’s a question for everyone. What got you excited about E3 this year, it can be a game I played or just a game you’ve heard about?