E3 2018: 5 Ups & 5 Downs From Bethesda's Conference

By Jack Pooley /

4. The Show's Terrible Pacing & Structure

Bethesda

By far the worst thing about Bethesda's show this year was the absolutely atrocious way the conference was paced and structured.

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Almost 15 minutes passed before we saw even a scrap of gameplay, due to a wildly unnecessary - if somewhat amusing - Andrew W.K. performance and an excess of stilted talking from people who lacked the public speaking skills to be on the E3 stage.

Moreover, the show dragged on for almost 90 minutes, more than double last year's ultra-compact conference. And rather than spread the more intriguing announcements throughout the broadcast, the more "boring" reveals were misguidedly grouped together, to the extent that huge stretches of the show were deathly dull.

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Basically, this is an exercise in how not to organise and deliver a conference, because no matter the crowd-pleasing reveals that (eventually) showed up, it was a total chore to make it all the way to the end (especially if you stayed up late to watch it).