I went briefly on Saturday to scope it out and look around, and was appalled to find out autographs from the stars started at $30! Fuck that.
But I did go to the Cosplay, and took a heap of pictures which you can find on facebook.
* * * * *
On Sunday I was a volunteer at the Queensland Games/Krome Studios stall. We demoed Viva Pinata and had Ty The Tasmanian Tiger posters, as well as Ty himself!
Some things I noticed about working this stall:
- We should have had Ty on display as well as Viva Pinata. Ty is a very popular game - I had people asking when the next one was coming out, or if we are making it for PSP / PS3 / Xbox360, constantly.
- Actually, we should have been showing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Whenever the QG video showed the trailer for that, people stopped to watch it. We would have been bigger than the SingStar stall if we had.
- Kids recognise and associate with the Viva Pinata cartoon, whereas older teens and adults know the game, and it really causes confusion. Our game, Viva Pinata Party Animals is based on the cartoon series and aimed at kids, and is not a true sequel to the original Rare game.
- There's some really sad and lonely people out there and games and game characters really touch them (and I'm not just talking about Steve in the Ty suit...)
- There are a lot of yummy mummies at conventions (or maybe I'm just being less picky in my old age)
I also attended the talks by John Rhys Davies and Lou Ferrigno.
Lou's talk was good, although he has trouble hearing and with the accent so had to get someone to repeat every question and the intention of some questions sometimes went awry. It's interesting to hear that he is 57 and still works out, and has trained with Chuck Norris, and how no one hassles him out in bars. He's a sheriff now with the California police, which is sure to freak out some drugged out crim he busts I bet!
John's talk was very moral and philosophical. He began by telling us he's pissed off that the UK government is thinking of denying ancestry rights to Australians. As he said, there's only 20,000 aussies in the last 5 years who've emigrated and not many of them have used Ancestry to stay there. He then went on a big diatribe on how he thinks pornography is wrong, how his generation championed rights but not responsibilities, and how he thinks we abandon children at 16, amongst other things. It was very interesting and although I don't agree with every point he made, it was very enlightening hearing that sort of talk from a celebrity.
I really wanted to stay for Jewel Staite and David Harris's talks, but I was pretty over it by 3... geeks/nerds are nice and all, but they're a little bit full on when in large numbers, even for me and I'm a pretty major nerd.