So Agus “Goose” Berry and I had a grand opportunity to head to the 2013 EB Games Expo held at the Sydney Olympic Park Showground. This year, EB Games out did themselves once again to provide all the entertainment in gaming straight to the gamers and those who don’t even play games.
Over the span of three days at the EB Expo, there was just a little too much to do and see but we eventually got around seeing the things we had wanted to come. Instead we decided to look at how the content the expo provided, the entertainment, the organisation and if it was really successful or not.
EB Highlight
The highlights over the three days were obviously the biggest hitters of this Q4 release. Showcasing games and next gen consoles such as the Playstation 4, Xbox One, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Batman: Arkham Origins, Battlefield 4, Titanfall and Assassin’s Creed 4. These games and consoles were much sought after as that that’s what is going to be released within the next few weeks leading up to Christmas. Each booth provided its own entertainment and fun but not much can be said with the extremely short demo and preview of some of the games. Questions arose more than satisfying our curiosity of the games itself. The only satisfaction came from the mind blowing Titanfall demo that lasted for a good 30mins which left more than a lasting impression. It literally made us fall in love with it and want to have more time on it!
MA15+ and R18+ Classification Games and Events
Since the changing of the classification of games from the beginning of this year, it changed how games are classified and that meant guidelines that event organisers and publishers had to adhere to. So this was a bit tricky as that some games were MA15+ and only a handful of titles were R18+. Although many parents were enraged at the event as that waiting in line for games of MA15+ with their children to watch over them as they play were turned away. Each booth had its own procedures of allowing who to come in but the frustrating thing is that, parents spend a quite sum of money to get into the expo which was advertised as an MA15+ event and any minors had to be accompanied by a guardian or parent according to the classification board. So the question arises next time around for the next expo is if the EB Games Events team will correlate with publishers and developers of showcasing games of what the fine lines are when allowing gamers to play the game.
Entertainment and Eye Ogling Goodness
Every gaming event or more to say, pop culture event that centres on gaming and the slowly growing animation genre here in Australia, you will get a few people coming in dressed as their favourite characters from games, films and anime’s. Cosplayers littered the scene of the EB Expo with their extricate display of fine sewing and costume designs, some even gone as far as putting on makeup recreating the Jack Nicholson version of “The Joker” from Batman. It was impressive and great to see how many of the patrons got together and took photos with the cosplayers and giving them high five for being out there.
Although there were a few up and downs of a few cosplay outfits that many didn’t welcome but as a growing community in the gaming scene. We should all be cheering one another on, instead of giving negativity to cosplayers who go through so much hardship just trying to appear out in public. Overall, the feeling of how the cosplayers we received was well and accepting just due to the growing interest and acceptance of cosplaying in Australia. Apart from all the cosplaying there were panels of interest about the industry, competitions, personalities and the Good Game Live shows.
EB Expo Hangover
After the expo finished it was a relief that such a big event for the year is over but the hard work is just beginning. Following up the success of the EB Expo, the turnout of the event was 15,000 less than last year’s attendance all due to the timing of the event. It ran alongside other major events running at the same time in Sydney which were the Navy Review Fleet, the One Direction concert and the NFL finals. It was a poor decision to have the expo running with all the other major events but it was all due to the timing of the school holidays where the school kids had the time off to attend.
But it was still a great event with a lot of improvements from last year but this year’s turnout was a little less than what was expected. Hopefully the organisation for next year’s expo will be much more thought out and hopefully get more vendors in to showcase more games and entertainment. Or even a change up on how we line up to play games, it becomes a tedious wait and queue up like a fair grounds festival with kids waiting to go on a roller coaster ride. We can only wait and see for next year’s expo.
Check out TheGamersPad Awards in what we thought was the best experience at the EB Expo.