I'd kill to get into E3.
Allow me to fetch my KILLING SPORK.

It certainly is nice of them. But I always worry about the "publicity" part in agreements. I'm afraid I'll be forced to dress like a woman for 2/3 days or something, lol.

I'm gonna have to steal a press pass and make it into the big three conferences.

Shelter for 25 people during E3? I think that's asking a bit much. In the past, we would share rooms to bring the cost down, still ended up costing a few hundred when all was said and done, though.

not trying to sound self center but its not like its going to kill them lol they make it back in months if not weeks.

when you provide shelter and or food you basically saying all the ppl that all lucky enough to win are coming from the same background, hell what 17(if 1 is chosen) going to have that kind of money(flight/bus and hotel and food).

dang even a discount or paying half the cost of the hotel/(w/e) or even for the flight/bus

Eh, it's easy to look at someone with more money and say "You should give me more." There's a video from BS of Penn & Teller examining how that works with eating pie as it relates to "spreading the wealth" :p

These tickets aren't cheap and essentially what they're saying is we'll pay for about half of what it would cost to go (tickets a few years back ran $600 for 3 days, sure more now).

IMHO, I'd never look a gift horse in the mouth and I appreciate when they're willing to pony up more than $10k just to help some people go to an event.