Day 2 of GameX, while starting an hour late for us due to an alarm clock failure, has proven to be just as fun and successful as Day 1. More, actually, on both fronts. I’ve never managed to have this much fun at a gaming convention before. The staff is smart, hard working, friendly and willing to help with whatever anyone needs. The exhibitors were, with one small exception I will mention later, top notch and full of win. The floor? Packed today, people old and young, hardcore gamer and people new to the scene.
Let’s start with the booths, shall we? There is a clear winner at GameX as far as booth quality. EA’s Dante’s Inferno booth was sheer perfection, the pinnacle of what you would expect to see at a con of this size. As you’ll see in our photo gallery it was a gothic looking both with obvious hellish themes, quality enough in and of itself, filled and covered with screens to play the game on, both inside and out. The most notable feature, to me at least, was the life size, highly detailed Dante standing inside the booth. The rest of were noticeably less flashy than the EA setup, but none were in any way insufficient to deliver the content they were designed to. My one complaint? A severe lack of booth babes. Now, I do not require them to be present to enjoy a booth in any way, but it just seems like some unspoken tradition to have at least a handful at each con.
Just like the book! Or not. Still badass.
The panels at GameX were all well though out and all of the ones I managed to attend were well executed and more informative than I could have hoped for. The panel schedule was divided into “Left Brain” and “Right Brain”, each matching up to their content as expected. The panels themselves were constantly changing, happening and flowing smoothly. My personal favorite was the one about how next gen MMOGs can succeed without trying to follow in WoW’s footsteps. Being my favorite genre, that has captured most of my attention since 1999, I was very happy with the content the three speakers put out for us, very insightful to the world of what a MMOG designer has to think about and go through. Also, this panel sold me on Fallen Earth. Cannot wait to get in that game!
GameX’s theater area was not a huge draw for myself or Dave., so I cannot coment with much authority on this subject. The schedule posted looked like solid content, ranging from a Clerks panel with Brian O’Halloran and Marilyn Ghigliotti and a panel about The Guild with the three attending cast members, to panels about how younger adults and kids about to enter college can break into the gaming industry. I sat in on The Guild panel for a few moments as well as the Clerks Redux one. Both were very well done, entertaining.
The worst failure at GameX was not on the con’s behalf, but on the fans, if it can be blamed on anyone really. The cosplay was damn near nonexistent, though the little that was there was generally of high quality. There was so few cosplayers in fact that the cosplay contest had to be canceled due to lack of sign ups. Lame, but I understand their reasoning. Watching 4 people compete is a bit lackluster at best. Next year people, you need to encourage all cosplayers to come! All other elements of GameX fell into place nicely, we just needed more shows on the cool costumes, is all. But, I suppose it being this con’s first year played a part in the cosplayers not knowing much about it. It can only get better.
We managed to get two really good interviews with a community manager and producer of Mythic’s WarHammer Online, as well as a producer from the very fun, very promising MMO Action Shooter Global Agenda, from Hi-Rez Studios. Keep an eye out for those to appear here on the site in short order. Day 2? Complete and awesome! Day 3, here we come! Possibly.
Related Posts :
GameX - Photo Galleries - Cosplay, Booth Babes, and Show Floor
GameX Day 3
GameX - Day 1 - So far so good
Great writing guys
I’m finally home!!!! and found this well written article but et me just start with…..This was a first class con. BY FAR, THE BEST east coast con I’ve seen in quite a while! Hands down to all of the gameX organizers! I got a FREE TOUR OF THE QVC TRUCK that made me more excited than staring at Amber’s ass (PMS Clan) while she was struttin her stuff on stage :). I was completly stunned gamex got all that exposure out to a BaZillion homes from QVC. Then they (QVC)told me that this was the FIRST YEAR OUT FOR GAMEX…. THAT’s IMPRESSIVE! Someone (I guess Paul Tresca or Jennifer Halpin) from the gamex team (http://gamexpo.us/about/team/) has what I would call the makings for a very successful future in this ‘con space’ and I am really pumped for year two! BUT…. Is there a year two? will see but i hope so, we need something of this caliber on the east coast. Oh, WTF is up with the internet? I was right in the middle of a game when it went down :(. Booooo on convention center for that one. They obviously have a poor network infrastructure and……It’s a video game con you frickin dumb asses!!! More to come….
TT