America's Video Game Expo

[Frogacuda]

Went to this today.

The Good: This is still Philly Classic. They moved back to their old venue, and while, in theory, they are embracing new stuff, there's really no more of it than there was in the Philly Classic days.

The retro arcade may have been their best assortment yet, with new additions including Battlezone, Major Havoc, Blaster, Assault, and many more, with all the good stuff returning. Except no Baby Pac Man

Still a big flea market with a lot of cool stuff to be had. Microvisions and boxed Vectrex games abounded. A TON of good SMS games to be had... Whatever your wanted.

There was a videogame trivia event, but they stopped giving me prizes after a while because I was too awesome for them. But I still kept answering anyway just to be a nerdy show-off

The Bad: Where the hell did the money go? They charged more for tickets and more for vendors, but they got no good speakers, and they only ended up pricing out the non-commercial exhibitors like the guy with every handheld and tabletop system, and Nuon-Dome.

They wanted it to be more of a mainstream gaming event, which would have been fine had they actually gotten some real publishers to come, but they didn't. It was still philly classic with a few people missing.

Prizes weren't as good, either.

[K3V]

The Bad: Where the hell did the money go? They charged more for tickets and more for vendors, but they got no good speakers, and they only ended up pricing out the non-commercial exhibitors like the guy with every handheld and tabletop system, and Nuon-Dome.

The table costs were really too high last year too, but I split it with the 3D Stooges guys so it was tolerable. If you're only displaying and not selling anything it doesn't make much sense...he should really lower costs for display-only tables.

I wouldn't mind selling stuff either but they force you to pay tax on sales so it's not worth the hassle for the handful of items I would actually bring. He really wanted me and the guys to come this year, and called a few times, but between the cost of the event and my much busier schedule this year, I really couldn't justify it.

[Frogacuda]

The table costs were really too high last year too, but I split it with the 3D Stooges guys so it was tolerable. If you're only displaying and not selling anything it doesn't make much sense...he should really lower costs for display-only tables.

Absolutely. Or at least selectively sponsor a few non-commercial vendors that will bring people in. They didn't even really have a guest speaker this year, which is ridiculous.

I also think the shift away from classic gaming is self-defeating, because it seems to be scaring people away, not bringing them in. Philly Classic attracted people from all over the world, and it did that because it was a specialized sort of event. VGXPO is really just as much of a classic gaming event, but because it's not marketed that way, it seems less special to people and the turnout is lower.

[Timber]

Just got home a little while ago. Frog summed it all up pretty well. I had a great time in the arcade (I fucking owned the Timber machine) and playing some of the consoles. We had 2-4 player Donkey Konga going strong really late Friday & Saturday night.

It seemed like it wasn't really necessary to pay to get in. They gave us wrist bands on Friday and never checked for them once. You could have come and gone at will. I feel bad for anyone who paid the $25 for the Halloween party. I never saw more than 6 people in there and they were all dudes.

My biggest disappointment was with the dealers. There were only about 10 places to buy stuff and only one or two of those guys were even slightly interested in haggling. A couple of the dealers had absolutely zero social skills and I could see why they didn't have store fronts and only deal online. It's kinda sad that the Cinci-Classics's dealer section was 6 or 7 times as big this year.

All & all the whole thing seemed kind of half-assed. It's a shame too because this thing had the potential to be really great. I may give it another shot next year but they really need to get off their asses and lure some more dealers & exhibitors.

There was an Anime con going on upstairs at the hotel on Saturday and I had some fun there too. It's always cool laughing at the really bad cosplayers. Plus there was some cool people up there.

[Frogacuda]

My biggest disappointment was with the dealers. There were only about 10 places to buy stuff and only one or two of those guys were even slightly interested in haggling. A couple of the dealers had absolutely zero social skills and I could see why they didn't have store fronts and only deal online.

There was one guy there who had a cardboard box of useless loose parts. One of them was an AV unit for A Sega Master System. My friend needed one so he asked how much. They guy said $10. We said that was retarded, and he explained to us that if he sold it to us, he wouldn't have it any more, and had he actually had an SMS (he didn't) it would decrease its value to sell it without the plug.

So we walked literally 4 feet over to the next guy and bought one for $5, and waved to the jackass at the last booth.

All & all the whole thing seemed kind of half-assed. It's a shame too because this thing had the potential to be really great.

It was really great, just a few years ago. Philly Classic 3 was everything I could have wanted. They had exhibitors from all over the world, and there was something for everyone.