Gamefest 2011: The review.

Video gaming has become a massive mainstream pass-time in recent years. In fact it's one of the fastest growing markets there is. Upcoming games create massive anticipation and the production costs and values rival those of Hollywood movies. As a result, Games companies are now able to partake in massive game exhibitions and shows such as the Tokyo Game Show and the recent Eurogamer Expo at Earls Court. It was nice to see GAME, the country's leading Game retailer decide to put on a show of their own. It was also nice to see an event actually taking place outside London, which I guess could have been somewhat of a gamble, especially with the aforementioned EuroGamer Expo taking place a few days later. There has been some controversy apparently, with GAME's timing apparently causing a few developers some annoyance over the logistics of the two events so close together.

The show took place at the N.E.C. in Birmingham and, being in such a central location in England, was a great chance for a few of us GSA'ers to meet up to talk games!! So off went Tricky, and I, press passes in hand, and fuelled by Haribo Starmix, to check it all out.



The N.E.C. is a suitably large venue and despite some archaic features like hand towel rolls instead of driers in the toilets, and the extortionate prices of the food vendors exploiting their captive audience (I do understand that their rents are very high however), it worked well. Having a press pass allowed us early entry to the show, and we were allowed around two hours to browse around. I expected there to be plenty of journos milling about, but I couldn't help thinking that it was eerily deserted. There didn't seem to be many people around at all for those first two hours strangely. Anyway, it gave us a chance to wander around and talk to some of the staff on the stands, who were - for the most part- very friendly and eager to talk about their products. A few exceptions were Capcom and Namco, who's reps either weren't there, or made no effort to interact with anyone from what I could see. A shame really. There was a good turnout of gaming bigwigs, with some attractive stands and displays from the likes of Activision, EA, Codemasters, Sega, Ubisoft and THQ. Most of the main players were there. Hardware and accesories manufacturers such as Turtle Beach and Roxio were also represented.











At Ten 0' Clock the doors were flung open for the general public and the place soon filled up. Around 30,000 people attended the event over the three days, which can probably be deemed a success. Large queues started to form for the popular games, such as Gears Of War 3 and Modern Warfare 3. These were moving very slowly indeed. The place was never overcrowded, the venue coped well with the numbers present but I wonder if the organisers and developers under-estimated the numbers in attendance. Perhaps a few more machines were needed for some of the blockbuster titles, in order to keep the queues down. A large chunk of our day was spent queueing for Gears and F1 2011. I think we spent around four hours on those two alone. Still, I suppose we expected as much.

GAME provided a couple of extra features such as "The Hub", which was a large seated marquee showing game presentations at set times on a large screen. They also had a retail outlet there with some reasonable reductions on offer.

So overall, I think the show was a success, although i was disappointed with the freebies on offer. I was unashamedly given a Splinter Cell Double Agent keyring from one stand, which must have been in cryogenic storage for five years. The offerings were dire and as press we were given nothing at all. I did get a fairly decent Driver Soundtrack on Vinyl which was quite a nice keepsake, but that's about it. It's a shame because I think getting some decent mementos that you wouldn't otherwise acquire is part and parcel of making an event like this a memorable one and helps people come away thinking they've had a worthwile experience.

In summary, a good effort, and a few positives for the industry. This could be even bigger next year and hopefully pave the way for more shows to be held outside London for once! There are gamers up North you know!!!

Photography courtesy of Riled Assasin and Colne Crusader

Nice review mate, pretty much sums up a good day.

I'd definately reccomend making the effort to go next year (assuming they do another), hopefully they'll learn from this years and make the next one even better.

The highlight for me was meeting three smashing lads from this forum and we got on really well. Oh and those girls with there arse's hanging out at the saints row stand was good lol

Markav wrote:The highlight for me was meeting three smashing lads from this forum and we got on really well. Oh and those girls with there arse's hanging out at the saints row stand was good lol

Aaaah!! That's nice mate!! I was thinking that myself! It's good how we're all decent down to earth folks who get on! You meet so many nasty people!

Hats off to GSA and to Kent for creating this great forum I say!!

looks and sounds brilliant and a must for any game fan.

Nice review mate rep given

I hoping that i get to go next year