General E3 Thread

While I helped arrange the broadcast I never considered that we would air commercials DURING the press conference, just cut in during the Mass Effect and Modern Warfare trailers without resuming where we had left off

That was already bad but....the FCC requires all stations (including cable, I don;t understand how) to do a station identification at 12:00 a.m every day or receive a fine...a $1k fine.

or something pretty small if you're a broadcaster. So, as with all things live, the press conference is going long, we're going to hit midnight during the trailer.

Suddenly someone in my earpiece is telling me that I need to take the audience to commercial during the trailer

I am being asked to explain to the audience that we're going to break into the fucking thing we've been hyping for weeks, but we'll be back shortly

I know our audience well enough that if I said Cthulu had risen and was coming at us in Santa Monica, that would still be unacceptable.

I tried saying something into the handheld mic but couldn't. I put it down and walked away and talked into my lavolier mike that i wouldn't do it, I was not going to be the fall guy in front of the audience for the stupidest decision ever.

except I may have used a lot more profanity and invective. And I was loud. Despite putting the handheld mic down and being several yards from it, my voice was picked up faintly and someone on You Tube discovered it.

We just cut to commercial without my explanation and the internet freaked out, deservedly. When the press conference was over I timidly talked to some of the (awesome) Xbox reps we had been working with and timidly hinted that things may not have gone as desired.

THE NEXT MORNING. There were not enough fans to handle the shit flying. G4's CEO, who had personally been excited about the trailer was in a rage over the decision, Xbox wanted everyone's head and felt betrayed that we were not forthright about how we would broadcast the presser

But, because I threw a tantrum and the mic picked it up and the internet found it I was a little in the clear. I was told that the inimitable @Peter Moore LFC said, "Well at least we know Sessler wasn't part of that shitshow"

it was bad, but it kinda gets worse.

The Friday of that E3 week we were back in the studio, there was tons of contrition about myriad disasters that week, it was a new beginning, best foot forward. We were going to acknowledge our mistake and run the trailer in its entireity.

honestly it's was a nominal gesture since every internet outlet had the trailer in its entirety from the last 4 days but having a Mea Culpa sounded right and a good way to make peace with our audience.

Except, on that Friday, after all the apologies and protestations and acknowledgement that we let everyone down...

we ran the Halo 3 trailer from 2006. Some poor, harried, exhausted PA grabbed the wrong tape.

This is when the phrase, "The ground fell out from under me" really made sense, there was no Ashton Kutcher, there was no Alan Funt, this actually happened.

I'm going to skip over a part where i did not take this very well. Remember I'm thinking about writing a memoir called "Asshole: A Retrospective"

Props to Morgan who looked me dead in the eyes and said "You have to keep it together...for me" and I did. At least I did as much as I can, if there's video of that moment you can probably see my hands trembling violently.

But, the upshot of this was I used it to remake our E3 coverage into what all of you remember, new games all the time for 4 days straight. Darkest night kids, you just get through it.