Last Saturday (April 26th, 2008) marked the debut of the Oklahoma Electronic Game Expo (OEGE). Unrelated to the already established Oklahoma Videogame Expo (OVGE), OEGE is a new show that took place at Oklahoma City Community College (OCCC). The show was sponsored by OCCC’s Computer Arts & Technology Society (CATS), and was spearheaded by student and club member Drew Stone. The first draft of this post was well over five pages long; I’ve since removed 90% of the details, and decided to go with this more generic review of the show instead. A review of the OEGE After Party (which took place at my house) will follow later today.
OEGE was plagued with issues from word go. Drew tapped CATS and OCCC as sponsors for the show, but as he soon found out, linking your event with such organizations (especially a school) is a double-edged sword. The upside is you can get lots of floor space inexpensively; the downside is, you have to play by their rules. From what I understand, red tape school politics delayed the launch of a website to the point where it never happened. With no website or official advertising, the show was doomed to a low turnout from the start.
The only official advertising I saw was a PDF flyer which was posted on one forum (I downloaded the flyer and rehosted it on my own site just so I could post links to it — it was the only way I knew to get the word out about the show!). Taken from the flyer:
“Oklahoma Electronic Game Expo is a day of video-game revelry. Our 2008 Expo will mark the first gaming destination in Oklahoma- where gamers and industry insiders can come together to celebrate video-games. Attendees come to OEGE to experience the newest games, encounter game industry legends, compete in tournaments, buy games, and meet with friends.”
Based on the above text, friends of mine from Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and even New Mexico drove to Oklahoma City to attend OEGE, in hopes of experiencing the newest games and encountering game industry legends. Instead, they found four vendors, two game stations, and an CATS booth. Of the four vendors, two were videogame related. One was Vintage Stock, a midwest-based gaming chain. The other was Phosphor Dot Fossils, who was there to debut his Phosphor Dot Fossils DVD (it’s fantastic — review coming soon!). The other two vendors were selling comic books and board games. Aside from the four vendors there were two game stations — an Xbox 360 running Guitar Hero, and a Wii (hooked up to a projector) playing a few different games (mostly Super Smash Bros. Brawl).
The word on the show’s floor was that several vendors either cancelled or pulled out at the last minute. I don’t know what went on behind the scenes. What I do know is we had seen everything the show had to offer in less than half an hour. While it was a nice opportunity to see all my online friends in person again, there wasn’t much for us to do there. Icbrkr and Gapporin played a few rounds of Guitar Hero at the show (a game both of them own at home, too). Had I driven from another state to attend the show I might have forced myself to stay longer … but I didn’t. After looking at everything on the showroom floor two or three times, most of us split — first, to eat, followed by a bit of thrift store game hunting.
Thanks to all the vendors who did show up, and congrats to Drew Stone and company for pulling off their first event. I’m sure the gang learned some tough lessons first hand this time around, and I expect great improvements will be made to next year’s show.