Let’s Catch Up, For I Have Been Remiss…

I apologize to my handful of readers.  I let my entries reduce to a slow trickle and I know, I have to face what I have done and eat sh** for being so bad about it… I think a quick recap is in order to bring us up to speed:

Wicked Quick E3 2009 Recap

The short of it is: the show is definitely BACK and returning to where it needs to be to become an impactful global presence. I was relieved to see people happy and excited to be there again.

No E3 is E3 without my buddy Marcus, known officially as The Annoyed Gamer. He really is annoyed most of the time you know...

As for me going in without a title to promote – I at least had myself and Maverick PR to push!  I had an amazing time wandering the floor free for the very first time in my career checking out games and catching up with the West Coasters.

I had lots of new business meetings – and made a bunch of new connections that I’m hopeful will turn into some really fun partnerships down the road.

I really dug the press conferences but the MSFT line management at their conference was ridiculously poorly executed.  At the same time, Sony’s morning open bar was a win-win – it was great crowd-pleaser and made entering orderly and relaxing.  Take notes for next year, people!

Sony's 10am open bar spanked Microsoft's endless line and check-ins; um... who makes the EIC of GI wait in the BACK of the line at your biggest press event of the year? Answer: Microsoft

Overall, I felt that the game lineup at E3 2009 significantly underwhelmed while the hardware lineup was exciting.  Seemed like there was a lot of the same old stuff (sequels, same-old racing games, sports, blah, blah) and derivative titles that simply don’t appeal to me in any way (um, DJ Hero, I’m sorry, you don’t make any sense to me and you will never be in my house).  No game jumped out as being really cool and exciting.  At least L4D2 was there. 🙂

iRacing Emerges to the Gamer Crowd…

At MavPR we’ve been busy firing up the engines for iRacing… if you’ve missed any of that coverage, you can check it out by visiting the links off the MavPR site here, here, and here. There’s a lot more coming from this awesome Boston-area online sim racing league, so stay tuned…

iRacing is making the rounds; it's more realistic with better online features than GT5. There. I said it. Deal with it.

New Business News on the Horizon… Big News!

We’ve also been lining up some very big new business deals and some fun projects for the coming year… we’re going to have a fat announcement about that very shortly, which brings me great joy…

Maverick PR Rolls On As A Successful Small Business

The really cool thing is that I’m now into my third year working from Maverick PR.  THAT is pretty awesome – I think that’s coming up on as long as I have worked anywhere.  I’m really proud that we’re beating the odds on small businesses, “especially  in this economy.”  🙂

We’re certainly helped by our forward-thinking structure with virtual office space and super-low overhead.  But we do things a bit differently here – we have a really intense focus on setting high expectations for ourselves, developing and utilizing very strategic thinking and planning, and delivering with superior performance and bottom line results.  Sure, I’ve bonked heads with some people along the way who I didn’t think shared that same commitment to a title’s success – but really, it was all worth it in the end. I tend to focus singularly on the success of a title and PR program, and how we can leverage buzz to further that success.  I know it irritates some people how passionate and driven I can be in those situations.

Here’s to a few more successful years of our little “micro-boutique” agency.

– PR_Flak

PS – be sure to check out the Big Huge List of games that Brandon and I have worked on – I just posted it yesterday and I think it’s hilarious.  And shocking.  Who could forget some of those HITS!?  Feedn’ Chloe? Wee!