Exclusive show report: GAMEXPO 2004

[Marek]

I went to GAMEXPO 2004, a gaming consumer event in Holland. It's the third time a GAMEXPO is held, and although I never went to GAMEXPO before, this year's show sounded pretty exciting. It was the first time they had a list of speakers as well as an elaborate award show with some international guests. There were also pro-gamers and a bunch of tournaments.

And what a vortex of pleasure it was.

The Xbox booth was promoting a shooter known as Halo 2. Exciting things were happening on stage.

Host: "This question is going to be very tough. Are you sure you want to do this? Here it goes. What weapon in Halo 2 is replacing the shotgun? I repeat: what weapon in Halo 2 is replacing the shotgun?"

"The SMG?"

"Can you say that a little louder?"

"The SMG!"

"No, no, no. All wrong. But because you participated you get this Halo 2 GoODiE bAg woot!!!! Anyone else want a goodie bag?!"

Greedy hands launched into the air. Someone handed me a free copy of an official Xbox magazine. I went to have a snack.

But that wasn't the only highlight. There was also Jeroen Post and some girl I don't know from TMF (a Dutch music channel owned by MTV) mucking about on stage and taking pictures with people and even hosting an improvised rap battle for what were probably amazing prizes.

Celebrity action!!

I didn't play much games, because all the pods were occupied, and the featured games were out anyway so you could just as well play them at home. I suspect it was super fun for at least half of the people in attendance, but to me this part of the show was shit and boring.

A friend gets interviewed by an unknown camera crew. The questions included, apparently, "what are you playing right now?" and "are you excited to be here?".

On to the multi-game tournament. It had spectator seats and two nice big screens showing each of the two competing players. Good. Finally. But as I sat down to watch a pro-gaming C&C: Generals session, the big screens crashed.

Screw that.

Maybe this place wasn't meant for me. Perhaps, possibly, I didn't really belong and it was turning against me. Fortunately, there was also a lecture by Ernest Adams. This, to me, was a big reason for coming. You can't really go wrong with Ernest Adams. What a great lecturer. Sadly, his session was canceled, in fact all of the sessions were cancelled, because the lecture room was placed -- get this -- in the middle of the show floor. Guess why they canceled it? Yep: the noise. Man, what an astronomical fuck-up.

Sadly, no one informed anyone that it was canceled, so I sat there for half an hour waiting for it to start. You see, the poster outside the lecture room said it would start at 4:00, while I was told in advance that it'd start at 4:30. I asked the guy at the information desk, but he was completely clueless on everything. The people at the press room were friendly, if ignorant. There was, indeed, no one with any significant ties to the GAMEXPO organization to tell me what the hell was going on.

To top it off, GAMEXPO messed up my press registration. Also due to lack of proper advance communication and/or people present at the show who actually had a clue, I was denied access to the game award show because all seats were taken and apparently I was not to be found on any list. Everything that was press-related or excitedly pre-announced that I was anticipating did in fact not occur due to GAMEXPO being insultingly disorganized. Fuck you.

The verdict:

It was butt.

There were girls.

Some of them were cute.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

LOL, what a major disappointment, Marek. What exactly was this event, a gaming convention or a 3 ring circus? Sounds like a lot of unprofessionalism.

[Chris]

I've been to events that were totally botched by the management. It's amazingly frustrating. I'm sorry, Marek.

[ysbreker]

Ah the joys of the dutch games world taking itself not seriously...

[Ryam BaCo]

just for gaining an insight into the "importance" of this event: how many people were there? for how many days did it take place?

[ysbreker]

Game expo is part of a 3 day computer fair in the jaarbeurs hallen in Utrecht. It's the biggest computer fair in the Netherlands.

It started out as the yearly meeting of a dutch computer club called HCC, (Haagse computer club, established in 1977) Which has members all over the country. Each part of the club would showcase what they have been up to the last year and next to that there was a fair where you could buy computer(parts) real cheap. It has grown out to be the biggest computer fair in the Netherlands, an average of 100.000 people in 3 days, with this game expo excuse tacked on. And the computer-fair isn't that cheap anymore either.

So all in all, the HCC-days have become too big to be fun or usefull.

dutch website about the HCC days

[Tanukitsune]

I don't think we even have any gaming expos in Spain.....

There are some kiddie expos where can meet the Power Ranger and play Pokémon, and there are techonology and computer expos with a small section dedicated to games....

Also some comic convenstion have mini game expos....

But we have NEVER ever had an expo on gaming only....

[Erwin_Br]

I've been there last Friday. The boothbabes were indeed cute, but I think I liked last years expo better. But maybe that's because I went on Friday, instead of Saturday.

--Erwin

[Roderick]

I was there last year, but not this year because I was busy moving and all that. Still, doesn't look like I missed a lot. last year I primarily went to lobby a bit with the various publishers of gaming magazines that were there. I couldn't care less about the games on display where al the rabid nerds were flocking about.