Project Lore

The east coasters finally received another large video game convention on their side of the United States. This past weekend saw the Video Game Expo return to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, and yours truly was in attendance. While the VGXPO is not large enough to take up all of the available space, the people in charge timed it to coincide with an anime convention, thus bringing two like crowds together at the same time. Whatever genius created a Venn diagram of the target audiences and applied it to the convention scene deserves a raise.

So there I was, as stunned as a deer in the headlights, trying to figure out what to do first. The anime section? Nah, I am not that into anime. Retrocon and all the old school goodness? Well, it isn't getting any younger, but the audience there is a lot smaller so it can wait. I stomped into the main exhibit hall and was lambasted by Intel ad after Intel ad. Seems that Intel is the expo's only large supporter.

I mainly attended the expo in hopes of catching some World of Warcraft Arena competition. Despite the organizer's best effort to put forth the most unorganized con I have attended, I managed to appear outside Intel's Invitational Gaming Zone just before Got Game East took on Fnatic. I watched Got Game East dominate the first round (after the teams agreed to restart due to lag issues). GG then changed their line-up to triple DPS, Boomkin, Rogue, Mage, to counter an expected line-up change by Fnatic. The change didn't happen and they took the first of two consecutive loses.  Despite the odds, GG turned it around and secured the final two matches to advance in the tournament, but lost in the finals. Too bad we did not manage to catch Minti's hands in the video.

The VGXPO has certainly come a long way in a year's time. Last year, almost all of the exhibits were inside the main exhibition hall. The 2008 showing was split up among numerous rooms and lounges, with hordes more vendors and attendees. The dual conventions was also a hit, allowing the same audiences to swarm through the entirety of the building, rather than two conflicting cons.  Returning features like the traveling old school arcade, open LAN areas and Retrocon, grew along with the rest of the con.  I spent some quality time with an old arcade favorite, Marble Madness, and even picked up some dirt cheap carts for NES and SNES (with sleeves!).  Lastly, Gaming After Dark Lan = Win.

Being a critic, I do see some room for improvement. Mainly, the line for getting in the show, in the mid-afternoon (hours after opening), on its second day, was way too long. In general, the convention was unorganized, with the handout pamphlet not offering much support. More signage and perhaps some volunteer staff is needed to keep things together. Sponsors aside from Intel would also be nice, as would additional in-depth talks. It is no E3, and frankly, I don't want it to be, but I wish it was a bit more serious.

My biggest regret with this year's VGXPO; that I did not score any swag. Nevertheless, a good show, hopefully the Arena teams didn't throw out my business cards as soon as I turned my back...

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