A day in the life of Kanye West’s budding game career

LOS ANGELES — Thousands of developers from all around the world attend the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo tradeshow to show off their games and take notes on the competition. Kanye West is no different. While he may be a megastar rapper, he’s just starting to wade into the waters of game development.

In February, West told a New York radio station that he is working on a game based on his hit single “Only One.” In the song, West imagines what his late mother, Donda West, would say to his baby daughter, North.

[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1753779,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,media,","session":"B"}']

“Right now, I’m working on a video game for ‘Only One,’” West said in the interview. “The idea is it’s my mother going through the gates of heaven. And you’ve got to bring her to the highest gates of heaven by holding her to the light.”

It’s unclear if he actually plans to release this game, much less what platforms it’ll appear on. No one on GamesBeat’s E3 crew saw him in person, but thanks to the power of social media, we can reconstruct West’s day with tweets and photos about which games he played.

Let’s start with Wednesday morning. The earliest mention I could find of West’s appearance was this meeting with senior vice president of the Entertainment Software Association (the company that organizes E3 every year) Rich Taylor.

https://twitter.com/RichatESA/status/611252156776120320

Later that morning, West went to the Xbox booth to try on HoloLens, Microsoft’s augmented reality headset. Stephen Totilo, editor-in-chief of gaming publication Kotaku, overheard the rapper’s diplomatic impressions on the new technology. While we may never know what West thought of Minecraft, Totilo did manage to snap a picture of him.

https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/611273507901550592

https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/611273795026857984

West then walked over to the PlayStation booth, which is just a few steps away from Microsoft’s. He played a demo of Uncharted 4 and tried on Sony’s Project Morpheus VR headset. I’m 99.9 percent sure he didn’t have to wait in any lines for either of them. One of our freelance writers, Miguel Concepcion, tweeted about it.

[aditude-amp id="medium1" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1753779,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,media,","session":"B"}']

https://twitter.com/NormalMode/status/611279371903471617

https://twitter.com/rayversus/status/611281131388866560

West crossed over to the other side of the Los Angeles Convention Center to visit the folks at Electronic Arts. He played the new Star: Wars Battlefront demo with members from developer DICE.

https://twitter.com/PatrickBach/status/611293267397857281

[aditude-amp id="medium2" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1753779,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,media,","session":"B"}']

It seems Mr. West couldn’t get enough of VR. Will Smith from Tested.com (no, not that Will Smith) saw him in a “super-secret” demo room. West’s entourage sounds a bit too … aggressive.

https://twitter.com/willsmith/status/611321930772164608

But that 15-feet policy clearly didn’t apply to Geoff Keighley. The well-connected gaming personality and creator of The Game Awards was seen escorting West outside of GameSpot’s booth. With his hood on and Red Bull in hand, West seamlessly blended into the E3 masses.

https://twitter.com/therealcliffyb/status/611325653015642113

[aditude-amp id="medium3" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1753779,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,media,","session":"B"}']

But not every company was fortunate enough to see him.

https://twitter.com/XSEEDGames/status/611387954380943360

Better luck next time, Xseed.