E3 is back. Instead of onsite shows, this year's convention will be entirely online. But while it would be easy to replace the flashy stage shows with live streams, the ESA is using an online portal to recreate the experience of visiting booths, handing out business cards, and talking about new games.

Media were granted early access to the site ahead of the general public launch later this week. In short, it's a damn good game.

You may have noticed that this year's E3 portal is heavily gamified. There are avatars (created with a very disappointing Picrew copy), achievements, and even daily leaderboards to be the best in the network. As a concept, it is very goofy. In fact, it is hardly even finished.

Waypoint's Austin Walker catalogued some of the oddities in a Twitter thread earlier today. Publishers were apparently left to guess in what context the achievements would appear, leading to a very vague (and some unfinished) challenge.

It's a deeply confusing way to describe a system that can't justify its existence in the first place, and Walker followed it up with a jab at the completely baffling UI sense, a trend that extends to the entire site. At best, the E3 portal could be a handy list of publisher sites and streaming, but you won't find them under this crap.

But some of these hasty decisions are confusing at best, while others are outright hostile; The Gamer's Jade King found that the portal does not even have a minimal gender option, and all users on the portal are declared male by default ."

She found that "the portal does not even have a minimal gender option.

This is a shockingly bare-bones and ill-conceived website for what is supposed to be the biggest show on the calendar, all the more offensive considering that it was only two years ago that ESA leaked the personal information of over 2,000 journalists and content producers.

"The most

"What's most disturbing is that ESA grossly mishandled data in 2019, yet convened a team that doesn't seem qualified to assemble anything resembling a passable online experience," tweeted Windows Central's Matt Brown.

"If this is all on the surface, what is going on behind the scenes?

As a member of the gaming press, it's already hard to justify using this site. There are many ways to reach out outside of this hub and I will be watching the stream with you guys on Twitch and YouTube.

What is more bizarre to me is that ESA is expecting a flood of fans to try out this site when it opens to the public on June 12. If there is little to offer the press here, I can assure you that there is nothing to miss about this site.

Aside from a below-average character creator designed for LinkedIn power users, there is nothing to offer.