E3: The Multiplayer Explosion..And What It Means for Hollywood

LOS ANGELES - Before I give you my take on E3, I'll first talk about my kids.

My 11-year-old girl and my 13-year-old are addicted to Runescape, a wildly popular game that allows young people around the world to become valiant characters in a world of chivalry, battles and, most important, community.

How big is the Runescape community (social networking for you techno-geeks)? Well, I tried to create my own account using usernames Michael, Mike, Miguel, Manuel, Michaelworld and finally Michaeldamn – all of which were taken. (If you don't believe me, try to start an account yourself on Runescape using those words).

I finally settled on Squid571.

My kids waste (pardon me, spend) countless hours talking to their buddies on Runescape and occasionally playing the game.

OK, now on to E3.

Even before you enter the massive L.A. Convention Centers, you're assaulted by the Championship Gaming Series booth, promoting a multi-city pro videogaming tour backed by IGN Entertainment, DirecTV and Mountain Dew. (“Millions in prize money,” says a booth staffer, although he admits he doesn't know just how much).

Inside the cacophony of E3, community is quietly part of nearly everything that's sold: from the massively multiplayer games for Xbox, PS2s and PCs to the WiFi equipped PSPs and Bluetooth-enabled Game Boy Advances for playing games with your friends at the bar or on the playground.

The Wizards of the Coast section on the floor is packed with people playing the cult game “Magic: The Gathering”, while 16 top “Magic” players are competing in the 10th Invitational Magic tournament.

Elsewhere on the show floor, four humans battled four locusts in Microsoft's Gears of War for Xbox; others were hacking each other down in Funcom's new Conan game; and multiplayer mayhem was breaking out at Sega's booth over its Full Auto 2: Battlelines, the sequel to its Xbox 360 hit. Meanwhile, Disney launched a series of multiplayer games for young aficionados of Game Boy Advance. “Gaming is becoming just another extension of what's already going on in popular culture,” says Pete Hines, Vice President of PR and Marketing for Bethesda Softworks, which demonstrated multiplayer Star Trek games at the show.

Now for the Hollywood angle.

The era of creating content and advertising aimed only at passive, solitary individuals is over. People want to share their games, content, skills, passions with other people.

That doesn't mean movies, TV and DVDs are passé. But it means they must be extended and promoted by creating communities of interest on the Internet, mobile phones, gaming consoles and live events.

That's why Fox bought MySpace, remember? And did you happen to notice that Helio launched MySpace Mobile a few days ago?

So if your idea of “multiplayer” and “community” is a bunch of studio suits at a hot party, it's time to retool your vocabulary.