Well, Hello EveryBuddy! (Ack! Bad joke!)
Just wanted to share with the thread my take on GT at E3 last week, FWIW, since we're one big happy family and all. :)
The GTIS booth was rather spacious; Nintendo, IBM, Sony, EA's were larger, but GT's was surely more than adequate. Various kiosks were set up: UNREAL, Duke Nukem Time to Kill, Blood II, and the Humungous division's Blue's Clues & Freddy the Fish among others. I sat in the arm chair with a Blue doggie puppet behind me, and had a Polaroid picture taken compliments of Humungous. The guy doing the puppeteering must've had a sore throat at day's end or perhaps was taking estrogen therapy, as he kept having to repeat, "Hi! Want a picture? It's me - Blue!" in a relatively high-pitched voice over and over... poor guy. But he did it with a smile, was good-natured, and it was good for PR in any event. :)
There was a large backdrop of the Ladykiller Hotel in the center of the booth, Duke's new gig in Las Vegas, and a few models dressed in Vegas showgirl attire posed with a very buffed & blonde actor, guns in hand, portraying Duke Nukem. (Ooooo La La!) GT had another lovely gal in very short shorts ;) taking complimentary digital pictures as keepsakes for those wanting to pose with Duke and the gals.
Yeah, so ok... I bit.
Which was rather amusing since I waltzed up to Duke expecting him to grimmace and say, "HAIL TO THE KING, BABY!" but instead, he said, "Hi! How are you?" with a big smile and shook my hand. HUH??? I responded with, "What do you mean, 'Hi! How are you?!?!?' Didn't you mean to say, 'Come and get some!'" to which he replied, "Well, ummm... you can put your hand on my gun if you want for the picture!"
No, opportunities just do not present themselves like this very frequently, guys... so what was V. to do?!?!?
SEIZE THE MOMENT!! <gggg>
So, I told him that I didn't really know him well enough to put my hand on his gun, but I would do it this time for the promo and I did, and My! What a big gun it was! and then the gal snapped the picture, and it is now I have a very amusing screen saver. <gggg>
But, back to the more informative part of this post: There was great interest in UNREAL, and people's mouths were basically hanging open as they played. The drooling was gross, but the enthusiasm was contagious. The GT booth was always busy, lots of people coming through all the time. There were a few pretty models on a platform too, touting the new Power Slide and TransAm Racing simulation games, both of which I tried. (I won a kewl baseball cap and a tshirt for coming in first place, but have to admit that I had no opponent in one of the races... tee hee hee) I spoke with the Australian head of the Power Slide project, who was still recovering from jet lag, poor lad, and he was very knowledgeable and we had a nice chat about the game. They did a great job with it, there's many different textures on which to drive - sand, ice, asphalt, etc. - and so realistic in the simulation chairs. One model, dressed in racing garb constantly repeated, "Come and try GT's newest! TransAm Racing... with an astounding 60 frames per second, more than twice that of the nearest competitor! See the muscle cars of the 60s and 70s!" while the engines revved, and it was a very popular part of the booth... the game that is. (Well, the models were quite popular too, perched atop of the platform... and that's GT, I guess... taking full advantage of every marketing **angle**!) These ancillary people did a great job for the company, adding lots of excitement and interest, but I heard that the ding dongs who set up the booth were lame, working until 10am the morning of the opening day, which left many of the exhibitors feeling anxious, upset and tired, naturally... I spoke with folks at GT about this, and they do not plan to use the same contractor next year, fortunately, though the show will be in LA anyway...so whatever.
The people at GT were hopping. Behind closed doors demos of 3DRealms' Duke Nukem Forever and Legend's Wheel of Time were constantly running every 15-20 minutes. I did not hear one negative comment from anyone on any of these new games. In fact, everyone was raving about them both. I understand that Ron C. commented at a little GT get together that night that the 3 developers about which he was really enthused were Epic, 3DRealms, and Legend. Unreal, Duke Nukem Forever, and The Wheel of Time, respectively - one release after the other over the next few quarters. Should generate some stellar revenues.
GT's Dan Harnett, in PR at the NY office, was charming as usual, and was on the floor coordinating lots of the action from what I could see along with his associates, and in good Duke form, Dan was typically being followed by a harem of women (though he'll deny that, I'm sure!) <ggg> I had only good experiences with everyone with whom I had contact, and I talked to numerous people, from all levels, and they were all enthusiastic, approachable, although very harried.
All in all, GT did a great job with the show, and if this is any indication of the company's newer image in general, then things are looking very good. I did not frankly expect to be so impressed, but I was.
However, the most exciting part of my trip was tracking down Scott Miller! :) Throughout the day, whenever I spied someone in a black 3DRealms tshirt, I'd run up and say, "Hey! Where is Scooter?" Most of the guys were dumbfounded and replied, "HUH?? Scooter?" so I'd say, "You know! Scott Miller - YOUR BOSS and my hero!!" and they'd all tell me that he was around somewhere and to keep looking, which I did. <ggg> One of his employees said, "Do you know what he looks like to find him?" and I said, "Oh yes... I'm a big fan of his, and I've seen his picture on the 3DRealms web page, but what is he wearing today?" ;) He was described as being "so high" [hand held up to demonstrate his height], "good looking, short, dark hair, olive skin... you'll know him... he's in shorts and a polo shirt..."
Unfortunately, I never did find Scott. :(
Until the end of the show on Friday. ;)
I was waiting for some folks to finish up with meetings, and was sitting on the TransAm Racing demo (don't worry, it was very sturdy!), and looked up to see someone about "so high", who was good looking, had short, dark hair, and olive skin talking to a couple of guys on the floor.
BINGO!! I had my man!
I waited until Scott finished his conversation, I was watching him intently as he spoke, just letting it all sink in <gggg>, and I'd say that he was aware of being watched as well <gggg> and so he looked up and gave me the "Do you want to talk to me?" signal and I nodded in the affirmative. He walked over and I said, "Hi Scott! I thought you would like to meet the rudest person you've ever met on the Net!" [He had posted that about me on the Yahoo board several weeks ago... ;] So, he seemed, ummmm... quite startled, and said, "Glad to meet you... I think..." LOL Note that I did not withhold my handshake; his public finger never entered into it. (That's a poor choice of words, so let me try again... sorry!)
Ok, I employed proper etiquette in meeting him by extending my hand to my new buddy. And, I smiled. A sinister smile, but I smiled nonetheless. ;) I flipped over my ID tag and when he saw "V. Karas", his eyes did widen and he said, "You really came!! I read it on the board that you said you were coming, but I didn't believe it!" LOL
And, that was the beginning of our beautiful friendship.
Seriously.
Truth be told, Scott Miller is incredibly nice, very well-spoken, polite, and was probably about as opposite of the image that I had of him in my mind's eye as he could be!! He was very likable, in fact! He invited me to see the Duke Nukem Forever demo behind closed doors the next day (Oooooo!!!), and so I came back to the GT booth and met George Broussard, his partner, who gave several of us a very enthusiastic and exciting demo of the new game. George was justifiably proud of their work, and they've introduced some new characters & creatures into this game for added interest. There's a very neat miner guy, Gus is his name, I think... whose twinkling eyes are truly spectacular and very lifelike. I loved the ant creature, a mutated insect/humanoid wielding a gun in his human hand while flailing his 2 insectoid arms on the other side of his body. Scott and George might even incorporate someone's idea to have Mr. Ant spew acid out of his mouth as a weapon which would be kewl. ;) Also, there's quite a lot of emphasis on Duke's personality in this game, some 3rd person views of him as opposed to the strictly first person behind-the-gun perspective as usual. Duke interacts with some buxom chicks dancing on the bars at one point, and they were quite topless in the demo, but they plan to put something over those in order to make nice-nice with Walmart and the other more conservative retailers, which is wise. (Don't worry, BOB, there's always the cheat codes... yuk yuk :)
I want to state publicly that though I had an immensely enjoyable time sparring with Scott on the thread and I mercilessly bashed him quite a bit, he earned my respect in person. No one should be more surprised by this realization than I was...However, I have no problem saying here to everyone that his net persona and first impression on this board are not indicative of the real Scott Miller from what I could see at E3. He really does seem to be a great guy, and has an excellent business sense. The Duke line is alive and well and got lots of positive reviews at the show, and I plan to pick up a copy of Forever when it's released. It's a good marketing ploy to sort of push Duke's persona in preparation for the movie and the merchandising blitz that should accompany such a release. Duke Nukem might actually be the next up and coming screen star... who knows? Scott indulged me by having our picture taken together with Duke and the showgirls, and I bid him a fond farewell, and left the booth... ;)
As a related topic, another inside source - don't get me started on this "inside" stuff again!! ;) - who shall go unnamed (I felt I had to throw that disclaimer in... ;) tells me that he's become very bullish on GT lately since their biggest internal developer (Humongous/Cavedog) is doing very well not only in educational software, but with Cavedog's own games. He told me that OGR ran some VERY positive stories on those products in development, many of which will be out in 1999. Also, the addition of Westwood and Virgin's European distribution is a big win for GTIS longer term, in his opinion. I understand that Cavedog is also developing an online web site for product purchase which is a good move and developing their own net play service. Furthermore, many of the employees at H/C are planning on enrolling in the stock purchase plan which is quite a change in sentiment from a few months ago when everyone was pessimistic about GTIS upper management.
With reference to the post earnings stock price, I was told by someone outside of GT looking in at the books that given the recent changes in accounting methods, the one cent earnings were nothing to sneeze at. On the surface, I think the street wasn't too impressed, but then again, they might not have invested enough time in studying the accounting changes to realize the turn around... I'd really like to hear other comments on these fundamental/accounting issues on the board from those with experience in that area. Thanks.
Technically, the stock is at a strong level of support, at the low to mid 8s, though the entire gaming industry seems to be taking a hit lately... very odd considering we are just post E3. The general market sentiment with reference to some weaknesses in the big tech players surely is affecting the overall view, but nonetheless, I personally think that GT is a good buy here, with a very limited downside. The upside potential surely outweighs any further market meltdown for those wishing to hold over the next couple of quarters until the revenues from UNREAL, The Wheel of Time, and Duke Nukem Forever are reaped.
All the above, IMO, of course... hope the commentary was somewhat helpful to my friends here on the board.
Take care, miss you all, and have been very tied up lately so won't be around much over the next couple of months... I wish everyone here happiness, good health, prosperity, and a very happy and relaxing summer. :)
xoxo,
V. |
