It's so hard not to clap, though, when everyone around me is doing it even if I hate the game or am not sure what to make of it. Worse is when someone catches me not clapping at a crowded press event and glares daggers at me as if I'm being rude when really I'm just trying to be professional. Sometimes I'm even afraid that the people glaring at me are the developers or their publicists planted in the audience to gauge reactions. In which case, I bet I'm not invited back to Microsoft next E3 if someone from the PR team saw my face at all during the Natal event.

In the end, I get why the panelists on the QuakeCon panel don't like "stone-faced" journalists. They want validation that what they're doing is cool, that they have a chance in hell of selling it as a product. What they're doing is very scary, and every part of my video game-loving wants to bolster them and encourage them so that they can go on to make great games that I love playing. But before all of that, I am a journalist. My feelings on their product -- and on their performance, if they insist on pandering -- are either irrelevant or should only show up in my previews, reviews, or editorials; not in their demo rooms or their press conferences.

The feedback loop between developers, journalists, and fans is one that should be defined by conduct and fulfilled expectations so that when you go into a crowded event where the three mix, like the Penny Arcade Expo, you'll know who's who. The developers will be up on the stage, pleading with their games for attention; the fans will be pressed as close to the stage as they can get, ready to start clapping as soon as the dev is done talking; and the journalists -- the professional ones, anyway -- will be wherever the press box is. Not cheering. But pleased to witness those who do.

AJ Glasser is a News Editor at GamePro who doesn't even clap during a real circus because she's usually holding a drink in one hand and her iPhone in the other.