I like to think of myself as a quiet person. I easily melt into a crowd, I keep my thoughts to myself, I usually speak only when directly addressed, and I'm not exactly the life of a party. As a result, my daily life stays relatively calm, if a bit humdrum.
You can imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that the very trait I have continually valued threatened to work against me when I started my first E3 coverage.
Sure, everyone knows that the mega event is an overwhelming orgy of gaming nirvana — take just one step through the cheerfully lit doorways into the convention halls and you'll be greeted with monolithic displays splashing vibrant colors onto the cheaply constructed costumes of bored-looking booth babes.
But as a first time attendant and a freshly minted member of the press, I had a firm inkling of my insecurities and inexperience right up until the doors swung shut and the halls were emptied.
Rather than wallow in self-deprecation, I view my time spent at E3 as both a dream come true and as an instigator of personal growth. Allow me to explain.
In a media industry that demands as much hustle as it does creativity, it's easy for feelings of inadequacy to occur during such an intrusive event like E3. My senses threatened to short-circuit from information overload. The limits of my gaming knowledge were quite diminished when compared to others who easily kept track of every title under the sun
Brushing shoulders with luminaries from hugely successful outlets such as Gamespot and IGN — an admittedly exciting affair — reminded me of the arduous effort required to move upward in this field of work. Things seemed pretty bleak for my morale and my enthusiasm as a writer.
Over the course of the next few days, it slowly dawned on me that my fellow journalists were not the selfish boogeymen that I made them out to be. I learned that everyone struggles with wrangling tricky concepts into actual words and that it's actually OK to possess only a moderate amount of gaming knowledge.
In fact, being able to meticulously explain the facets of only a few games in excruciating detail (in my case, PC games and the genres therein) is a pretty cool skill to have.
The biggest lesson I learned from all of this is that, no matter what set of skills you may have, the ability to have an ample amount of confidence is the most crucial component of all.
This past week has cleanly solidified my choice of career and industry; the sheer elation I felt while being surrounded by gobs of gaming culture is testament enough. I'm sure the stars in my eyes will subside with subsequent trips to E3 in the coming years, but for now, I can't wait for next year.
Bitmob may serve as a haven for aspiring writers wishing to hone their craft among like-minded individuals, but when thrust into a veritable soup of diligent contemporaries, having a confidence-boosting spirit and a willingness to learn trumps the fanciest wordplay.