Hey guys! It’s been a long time since I posted but I think I’m back. Yeah, so anyway…
If you’re a console gamer living in the Philippines, you might have heard of this little convention called Gamer vs. Gamer held last Saturday. It is said to be the first gaming convention in the Philippines; calling console, tabletop, PC and arcade gamers alike to come and join. That got me excited. So excited that I attended.
I went through the doors of the convention at around 5PM and it didn’t take me long to see how much of a failure the con was. It seemed like a ghost town. That or it looked like a normal computer shop. Basically, there were E-Games booths everywhere. There were at least 20 PC’s per E-Games booth and there was like six booths, all different games. My mind was just thinking “This can’t be it. Goddamn it! This can’t be it!” but no, I was faced with the horrible reality. This wasn’t a gaming convention. This was a glorified computer shop, and not the high-end ones either.
There was generally no love for console gaming. It broke my heart to see only one Wii, 360 and PS3 in the console booth. That immediately killed my expectations for any online tourney. There were select games for each console. The PS3 had Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Assassin’s Creed 2, Army of Two: The 40th Day and Batman: Arkham Asylum. The 360 had Bioshock 2 and Left 4 Dead 2. And the Wii? It had Wii Sports Resort. And that was it. So as you can see, all of those games aren’t fit for any kind of tourney. That and they aren’t really new-ish. I mean seriously? This was it for console gaming? Sorry to cuss, but where the f*** was the console gamer representation? This was just a disgrace. At the least, I would’ve expected a Tekken tourney. It’s easy enough to handle and only requires one system, but no. Hell, Super Smash Bros. Brawl would’ve made an epic tourney for the Wii! Four players duking it out all at once. But that was also a myth. How hard could it have been? The tabletop booth looked much more lively than the console booth, and that’s just incredibly sad.
Don’t get me started with the arcade gaming representation. The only games there were Percussion Freaks 5th Mix (complete with a barely working red pad), two Tekken 5: DR (one of which had a discolored screen), some NBA game and one basketball shootout machine. I’ve got to hand it to this con for making arcade gamers look pitiful.
I left at around 7:30PM, just disheartened at the wreck that I just attended. There was an open-bar at 8PM but meh, I don’t drink nor did I see any reason for staying any longer. I can only think of one upside. It barely counts but it was the single, most interesting thing in the convention. Datablitz hosted a bring-me game and were giving away games to whoever brought the item first. The last bring-me was probably the crowning moment of the con though. The last game up for grabs was the brand new StarCraft II. Most of the people were just staring at it, possibly with awe. Then the host announced the bring-me item. “Bring me… a PSP!” A handful of people ran towards the stage to claim their prize when suddenly, a twist comes in. “Let’s make this trickier” the host said, “bring me as PSP with a UMD inside!” Immediately, every one of the people holding their PSP up put theirs down. I was just laughing, I found it hilarious how every PSP owner in that bunch got shot down when the host mentioned that an original game be included with the PSP. Finally after two or so minutes, a guy comes up the stage and proudly presents both his PSP and a UMD of Tekken 5. Kudos to him for both having a UMD and owning a brand new StarCraft II.
So yeah, that’s that. The first ever gaming con in the Philippines, a complete and utter flop. I just want to say, to all you big companies out there that plan on creating another gaming con, contact us real gamers first. We’d be happy to help organize the event. Partly because we know what our fellow gamers want.
Thanks for reading and good night!
