Nintendo's Digital Event was the highlight of this year's E3 conferences

If we're being totally honest: the majority of E3 conferences are a complete shambles. 

As tightly-controlled PR events, how can you call them anything but failures? With bad actors, forgotten scripts, slow auto-cues, foreign developers struggling with English, missing translators, dead-eyed PR and Community managers spouting cheesy marketing dialogue, missing or frozen video, sound issues, faulty controllers, awkward presenters, not to mention employees planted in the audience to awkwardly cheer and yell platitudes.

Yet every year new competitors enter the ring with their own pre-show events, ensuring message boards across the web a slew of new gifs and 'embarrassing moments' compilation videos.

And while this year's conferences continued that same tradition, one struck me not for exciting game reveals or horribly misfiring comedy, but for something unique and exciting.

Forgoing the bombastic stage events of Sony, Microsoft, and a bevy of popular IP holders no longer willing to be sidelined by their competitors, Nintendo once again opted for a pre-recorded Digital Event broadcast online.

When considering those key elements that make one E3 conference stand above the rest, it's fair to say Nintendo didn't really bring too much to the table in this year's press conference battle royal. But I would still find it very hard to say Nintendo failed to present a compelling and unique Digital Event.

What Nintendo brought were elements every other conference - in this and previous E3 expos - are noticeably lacking: passion, honesty and creativity.

Make me care

Bookending sections of the Digital Event were Developer Story segments. Much like Nintendo's Iwata Asks videos, these segments gave the people behind the games a chance to expand on their designs and inspirations.

To be fair on the many awkward presenters trotted out onto E3 stages, most people aren't comfortable speaking on camera let alone in front of thousands of strangers.

But watching a developer squirm and stumble through a presentation is uncomfortable and distracting. If we look back at the infamous slate of conferences during E3 2010, what stands out more than the games announced are the embarrassing gaffes and awkward presentations. 

Even the familiar lineup of CEOs and PR speakers frequently stumble with auto-cues or struggle keeping up with live demos.

But Digital Events allow Nintendo to craft a fluid presentation that highlights games and gives developers a chance to relax, and speak honestly and passionately.

We're able to listen to Emi Watanabe's story about creating Yoshi's Wooly World, to be visually engaged by the yarn creations on display. We learn something about the development of the game, about the features, who the intended audience is, why we should buy this game, all in a natural conversation.

With every other E3 conference we get the same bullet points of a new game reveal: "Now let's talk about combat. Now let's show you multiplayer. Here are all the guns and gadgets."

But whether we're listening to Watanabe, Eiji Aonuma and Hiromasa Shikata, Shigeru Miyamoto or Takahashi Tezuka, the developers and team members all spoke about their respective games not just as if they were checking off features. 

What we got during Nintendo's Digital Event were conversations about creating and playing games. Miyamoto spoke about how Thunderbirds inspired the cinematography and characterisation of Star Fox, which conveys what we can expect from this series. He explains how the ideas from an unreleased Star Fox 2 were utilised in Zero, implying that even though many of the concepts that seem new to this latest instalment still fit with the overall design of the series. None of it relies on the tired vocabulary we hear at other conferences.

Aonuma and Takahashi explained how depth played into the creation of Triforce Heroes's Totem mechanic. The game's resemblance to Four Swords Adventure on the Gamecube was immediate, so why only 3 players this time we all wondered. Well, they explained it. I could imagine as I was watching the Digital Event live, how any other company would simply gloss over this aspect and then try to nervously justify it in an interview later in the week. 

It struck me when Miyamoto spoke about the desire to fly under all the arches in Star Fox games. What I'd always thought a personal quirk was an intentional design choice, meant to echo the same feeling Miyamoto had walking under the arches at Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto. It's an incredibly subtle connection, yet one that highlights how well Nintendo creators are able to invoke very specific feelings within players.

We've heard countless times from developers during these events, "We love games," and I've never believed it. During Nintendo's Event, we didn't need to be told. You could feel it.

Amiibo, mi amor

Watanabe's story also goes to challenge a few myths about game development, especially within large, Japanese companies.

I think many people view game development, especially in Japanese studios, as a very oppressive environment. Game development is seen as an incredibly cynical venture; where individual creativity is squashed by the hierarchy of corporate, profit-driven decision making. 

Yet here we have a woman speaking imparting her passion for the game she is creating and eagerness to contribute to the team in any way she can. Her inspiration resulted in a unique approach to Nintendo's amiibo products, and NFC figures overall. I'm sure many of us before couldn't conceive of NFC figures being much more than the familiar plastic nicknacks that Skylanders has made so familiar.

Despite a bit of polite Japanese deference, I would say it's pretty well understood Watanabe's creation was the main inspiration.

Stories like this go a long way in showing that collaboration and creativity is still alive in game development and the people at the top are willing to listen to their teams, even at big companies like Nintendo.

What this story also serves is to divorce amiibo from their image as money-making gimmicks, and present them as not only part of a cohesive game experience but true labours of love.

I don't care if you tell me the next DLC for an MMO is the 'true continuation of the story.' It feels like a scam. 

But you put someone on camera saying they made a plush Yoshi just to cheer up the development team? 

Nintendo just sold me an amiibo.

As Reggie Fils-Aime spoke with Kathik Bala about creating amiibo for Skylanders, it was really surprising to hear both discuss Nintendo's protectiveness over it's franchises. Bala mentions how the team at Vicarious Visions were reluctant to take their ideas too far, in case they were rejected, but reassured by Nintendo staff to explore new possibilities. 

It's a really well crafted conversation that not only admits to Nintendo's controlling behaviour but shows they are willing to change, while also telling the audience to expect something unique from this collaboration.

In conclusion

These are all things that build interest in a game. That make an effect marketing presentation (let's not forget that's exactly what these conferences are). We could pick up any first person shooter to see more brutal executions and bigger multiplayer experiences. But Nintendo spoke about what the games mean to the creators personally and why we should feel that way too.

Aisha Tyler saying she's excited for a new Ghost Recon game doesn't tell me why I should be excited. Shinji Hashimoto announcing Kingdom Hearts III, admitting he was impressed by the series's direction after watching the trailer himself, tells me he has no idea about the day-to-day operations of the Kingdom Hearts team.

What we got from the Nintendo Digital Event were coherent narratives, personal stories of inspiration, an expression of Nintendo's ambitions and reasons to invest ourselves in these games. While other conferences brought the wow factor in terms of surprise reveals and new technology, Nintendo showed how their competitors failed to grab the audience where it really matters.