Conferences and Shows

[AVDad]

Does anyone attend any conferences or expos like E3 or similar?

If so, do you think it helps you in your business?

If not, why not?

[Alomax]

I have gone to E3 twice, once as "press", and once as a LAN owner.  E3 is completely pointless to attend, only go if you want to be mildly entertained. You can meet key people from developers and producers (I had a meeting with Valve) but you won't get anything productive unless you have leverage. And by leverage I mean money.  PAX would be a much more fun experience, and is on my to-do list.

iGames used to host a LAN center owner expo, but it died out because A) this industry is fairly small and B) we are all cheap bastards

[RsteeleAUG]

Never been to a conference but I have visited an independent developer before. Hi Rez Studios (they made global agenda sort of a MMO with some first person shooter traits). They are also working on the new TRIBES game. When we went to visit they gave us like 20 game keys to give away to customers, some t shirts and buttons, and showed us the entire studio. They were only a 2 hour drive away but we enjoyed it a lot.


They have Dragon Con in Atlanta but I've never made it a point to go. Lots of my customers do though. We try to stream the ones that have live web broadcasts we watched a lot of E3 here last year.

[Skyshark]

I'm only a prospective owner but some of the smaller conventions can serve as good marketing outlets.  Tampa has two large anime/comic conventions (MetroCon and ShadoCon)...and both seem a good way to get some attention to some of your customer base...but not much in the line of networking with developers, vendors, etc.  Both have had game rooms/LAN gaming which stay pretty busy because it's included in the event pass...probably for a set fee from the provider to the convention organizers.  Might be a good angle if you have the means to do some mobile setups and are willing to give up a weekend.

For networking with gaming companies and vendors catering to the marketplace, you might consider GenCon (usually held in Indy mid-August).  Very large convention that has a sizable presence in all types of gaming (video, tabletop, roll playing, cards, etc.).  When I went to ShadoCon to chaperone my daughter and friends...I picked up some emails and phone numbers of attendees that had some great looking costumes/cos-play for possible marketing uses at a later time.  Thought it might be good to have some kid handing out flyers dressed up as Master Chief or Storm Troopers.   

[Alomax]

Ah, local *Cons can be fun.

Phoenix has the DEVASTATION event once a year, which we participated in last year. They did again this year, but I wasn't there for that.  They gave us the space/power/internet free, and in return we provided free internet access and registration, and ran a Quake Live tournament.  It was ok, figure it cost us about $2000 in terms of manpower and lost revenue at the store from reduced capacity.

I heard this year they took the entire store there and set it up, or something close, for a full 4 days.  Which is nuts to me. At that point, the event needs to start compensating me for the service I'm providing.  Yea I'm getting some good marketing, but still.