Even though I’m a million years old, I can still remember being a little kid at Christmas when the world was full of possibilities. Back then we’d get the Sears Wish Book which was full of toys and games, and leaf through it and daydream. I knew a lot of the stuff in there I’d never get, and even at that young age I knew some of the stuff that looked cool (X-Ray Glasses!) was really junk, but it was still fun just to look and daydream.

These days Christmas is more or less a non-event, but on the opposite side of the calendar is E3. I *love* E3. I’ve only actually been to the show a couple times, but I ‘attend’ it remotely via TV and internet. And I just love looking at the reveals and trailers and daydreaming about what’s possible in the world of gaming. Some very few games go on the ‘Day 1 Buy’ list, a good number more go on the ‘Keep an eye on this’ list, but the vast majority I just let kind of wash over me.

I doubt that I’m alone in enjoying the spectacle of E3, but sometimes it feels that way. As I surf around the blogosphere, it seems that every year more and more words are devoted to aggressive apathy towards the show. What do I mean by that? Well, it’s fine not to care about the show, but what I don’t understand is why people need to make a big deal about not caring about the show, or about the games that are shown there.

We can’t make ourselves like stuff we don’t like, of course, and our blogs are our blogs. I’m not saying folks shouldn’t vocalize their “Meh” reactions to E3. I’m just saying I find that it’s a little sad. After all these are games; we don’t need them to survive or even to be happy (I hope). A preview of a bad game, or a game that doesn’t interest you, doesn’t harm you in any way.

I just think a lot of us are becoming rather cynical these days. I’d love to remove all video and computer games from the world for a year or two, and then re-announce them via E3 and see if that could re-kindle the joy. Maybe if we weren’t exposed to games 365 days/year we’d feel less apathetic about them.