185,000 visitors (versus 183,000 in 2006), 3,300 journalists from 46 countries (versus 2,610 from 38 countries in 2006), and 94 percent of exhibitors reporting they hit their goals ("to a high or very high degree") -- GCDC officially makes even what used to pass for E3 look like a piddle in a puddle in a back alley somewhere.
The EA stage, where I finally got to spend thirty minutes hands-on sampling Crysis. More on that shortly.
It's also pretty clear to me that Europeans take interactive entertainment a lot more seriously (with less aesthetic wishy-washiness) than we do here in the U.S. Our best shout outs of late? A few folks fumbling out some ambivalent, bashful allusions to BioShock being "art" or occasionally "artful." In Europe, it's not even a question, and certainly not in thrall to the m-o-c-k-in-the-U-S-A message board graffiti that tends to define what is and isn't appropriate to think these days.
On the conference portion: Sadly most of the U.S. press arrived a few days after it started, and only really paid attention when the booth babes and thumping techno-pop with strobe lights and "already seen it" game footage kicked in. (Me? Cynical? Never!)
This area was smack in the middle between the halls, and maybe one-twelfth of the total floor space devoted to the show.
But anyway, I'm back, red-eyed, jet-lagged, coffee-strung, grumpy that British Airways lost my luggage, grateful that my washed passport (ask my wife) was still legible enough to pass muster, giddy to finally get my fingers on BioShock and Two Worlds and Lair and Blue Dragon, but most of all, really hoping the U.S. gaming press gets off its lazy butt in 2008 to give next year's GCDC -- especially the developer conference (and less the whiz-bangy convention) -- the coverage it deserves.
