Arkedo's Guermonprez: E3 is 'out of focus with reality'

The co-founder of French indie developer Arkedo (Hell Yeah!) takes stock of the trade show, finding that it doesn't represent the state of the industry -- just a slice of it. With the backing of publisher Sega, which signed his game Hell Yeah! Arkedo co-founder Camille Guermonprez found himself at E3 -- but he found the show out of touch with the real pulse of the game industry. "This show is a little bit out of focus with reality, I think," Guermonprez told Gamasutra. "There's never been so many indie successes, and people are still trying to do the same old thing with more money and more boobs." "There are new things happening somewhere else, but we just don't have the right prism on the industry right here." So where does he think you'll get a real taste of the industry? Penny Arcade Expo, the fan-oriented bash that happens twice a year in Seattle and Boston, provides a "better vision of what the usual gaming community is about," says Guermonprez, because it includes a wider swath of games -- including even board games as well as major console titles, and, of course, indies. "You have such a big indie scene at PAX, and I think it's closer to the real market than E3." He admits that it's "always interesting" to see what the big developers are doing at a show like E3, but he sees the "guerilla" style of indie developers likely to provide advantages in the long run. "When you're small you move faster, so when the situation is changing, you better be some kind of high-running little lemur than a big dinosaur, because you're going to get a tree on your head, otherwise," he said. "I have absolutely no idea how we're going to be in three years, but we're small, we're always going to have our own energy, and find the new thing, and we're going to move fast. I think all indies are going to be like that." Keep reading Gamasutra for more from Guermonprez.