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- VGXPO: Crowded, Cancelled, Subpar
- Posted About 1 month ago by SoulScreme
[Reposting my own article from mashedbuttons.com]
I have just come back from what was supposed to be day two of three for VGXPO. I missed day one due to work, and I am not returning tomorrow. I have been a fan of the VGXPO convention in Philadelphia since I first went three years ago and it was only a handful of true fans. However, this year was quite sour.
Ever since I started going, VGXPO has been growing in popularity. Last year the event was moved to the Philadelphia Convention Center, a much larger venue. This worked well to offset the increase in attendance. This year, attendance grew again, but the convention seemingly did nothing to counteract this. I arrived, pre-registration proof in hand, and was told to wait in line for an hour. Actually, I was first told to wait outside, in freezing temperatures, for an unspecified amount of time. Lines were the story of the con for me. I first tried to go see the Postal screening. It didn't happen. I later learned that they had delayed it and moved it to another room without informing anybody. A friend of mine had to ask a staffer, no sign or anything.
I proceeded to the RetroCon, a room full of dealers carrying retro gaming goodies. This was great, I got Panzer Dragoon, the original Dragon Warrior, and the original Metroid. I love retro games and this part of the con was my only high point. The dealers had a fantastic selection of domestic and import games. While some rare items made no appearance, a $30 copy of Panzer Dragoon made me smile.
So, I continued into the main hall. I met up with my friends from another local gaming website, GamerVision.com. After some quick hellos, my friends and I started exploring the hall. In previous years, the main hall was comprised of exhibitors, classic games, and some LAN party areas for free play. This year, the PCs were almost entirely exclusively used for tournaments, only and hour of free play in the morning. So, playing Crysis Warhead or Left 4 Dead was out of the quesiton. Everything that was playable had massive lines. Even the old school arcade cabinets were mobbed. The attendance had increased four fold, but the number of playable games had decreased. The only games I played were come Contra in the RetroCon and Guitar Hero World Tour. I'm a Rock Band drummer, so I wanted to try out the World Tour drumming. I waited a half hour to play while seven and eight year-old kids hogged the machines with no staffers to keep the sanity. When I got up to the drums, the batteries were dead and there were no staffers to replace them. I played bass.
We wandered around a bit aimlessly, just checking out what was around. Saw MK vs. DCU at the GamerVision booth, the upside to having a professionally funded website. It was pretty sweet. I also watched the GamerVision boys do their podcast live on stage and checked out a live action fan film called Fighter's High. It was intended to be an anime spoof. It wasn't terribly funny, but I like the idea and think that it might be good when they've filmed a few more episodes.
Finally, despite the Postal debacle, I went to the next big deal, the David Jaffe talk. Sure enough, all the other website guys were there waiting with me. Then it got cancelled. Not delayed, not moved, just cancelled. I was there for over 5 hours and all I did was buy some stuff and play two video games. It was massively disappointing.
I know the pimped the hell out of it on the show. In past years it has been awesome. The convention folk say that they didn't know it had increased in size this much. To that I say two things. One, the pre-registration line was way bigger than last year, that count should have told them it grew. Two, stop letting people in. Have a target size and don't go past it. If you are set up for 5,000 and let 20,000 in, you end up with 20,000 pissed off people instead of 5,000 happy people. So, I'll give them a year to straighten up their act. However, I am not going back on Sunday. If this happens again next year, I just give up. If I can't play games or see cool panels and meet cool people, what the fuck is the point?
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Comments
I agree with a lot of your points too. I still had fun, but half of the stuff I wanted to see just didn't happen. The website said there would be karaoke and stuff. None. Where was the cosplay competition? It was just as badly organized as last year!
Lionhead and I always know how to make our own fun though, so we still had fun, and I bought a ton of crap at Retro-Con and the anime booths, not to mention the Samba de Amigo thing and Anime Trivia/Name That Tune, where I won the grand prize. It was great to make some new friends from pwned.com and buy stuff from the Suicide Girls.
Maybe you are right about them limiting the amount of people though, or else they seriously need to organize things better. If you pre-register, screw having to stand in line! Send me my passes in the mail so I can just go in. That line was absolutely stupid. Also, I hate to say it as I am a mom, but don't let small children in. Having to wait in line for some 7 year old to finish up playing Guitar Hero was a little ridiculous, not to mention that while trying to catch swag thrown by the PMS Clan, some dude actually knocked me over on top of someone else's little boy! I felt so guilty!
I will be going back next year, but they better start getting their act together. Also, did anyone else besides Lionhead and me hear the rumor that Otacon might be moving to the convention center next year?
I had more fun last year because Jack was there. I guess its good for the companies that there were much more people there this year... I didn't really expect to have fun at the expo, so I wasn't dissappointed at all. Its not like developers really care about the VGExpo. Nothing exciting or important will ever be announced at the VG expo, cause its just filled with locals and broken Dells.
I very much agree with all of these points. The best time to be there was definitely Friday, right when it opened. You could play most of the games with little to no lines, talk to all of the people at booths, and generally get around the expo a lot more. Saturday and Sunday were rather subpar, certainly, and the David Jaffe cancellation was extremely annoying, as we rushed back from our lunch to attend it, and nothing is sadder than a mediocre meal. Also, they tournaments were pathetically disorganized. They pre-registered online only to find out that they were completely ignoring that system and actually using looseleaf paper from a notebook to make brackets. Then they proceeded to disqualify 2 of my friends because a bunch of people didn't show up for their matches so they called them 2 hours early and they weren't there yet. Isn't this a VIDEO GAME expo? I thought we were in the electronic age.
The Breaking In panels and talks on Sunday were actually pretty interesting. Nexon gave a presentation and some HR and Recruiting people had a panel Q&A. Other than Friday's emptiness and Sunday's talks it was rather unsatisfying, though.
I went to the VGXPO 2 years ago and it was awesome and there was a lot of stuff to do. There wasn't a lot of people there and you could easily play the arcade machines and other games that were set up. This year I went all 3 days. Friday was good, but I noticed that there were more people then 2 years ago. It was still good though and I could easily get my tickets. Saturday though.... There were way to many people. I couldn't really do much. I did stay for the videogame bands though, which was ok, but I only liked the chiptune stuff (Animal Style, Cheap Dinosaurs) and I had to leave before The OneUps came on (disappointing). Sunday wasn't that bad but there still were to many people and really long lines. I also noticed that there were a lot of really young kids (younger than I would expect to be there). I thought it was good though, just too many people. Gamervision booth was awesome. FREE HOODIES FTW!!
you are so right about all the things that were 'SUPPOSED' to happen, but didn't.... I was really upset over this too. I mean, come on. It was THAT BUSY. Why couldn't they keep their crap together? I was really dissapointed myself. no... Extremely dissapointed. They also could've done alot to make the place look interesting. It just seems that you/we/whoever could just take control of it and actually have a pro-gamer go "... This is how it's gonna be" and actually DO IT... The after hours party? Pssh. just a stupid little light show to the entire cd of Pink Floyd!! COME ON!!!! I waited a year for this convention... What happened?...
The only reason I wanted to go was for the retro con, which I am sorry I missed out on, but if as you say was true that was enough for me to to be happy I stayed away.
sounded more upsetting that fun. I guess I'm glad I didn't burden myself going?