GameSided Roundtable: Favorite Gaming Conferences

Greetings! This is our weekly GameSided Roundtable feature, where our writers converge to provide their opinions, wishes, statements or critical thought on one general topic centered around video games. Sometimes it can be funny, sometimes it can be serious. Contemporary, classic; we hope to cover a wide variety of things in this segment as a group. If you wish to submit an idea for a GameSided Roundtable discussion topic, you can leave me an email at: daniel.george@fansided.com. We’ll totally give you (and your Twitter account, if applicable) a shoutout!

Editor’s Note: Last week’s Roundtable offered up the GameSided team’s opinions on what conventions in gaming have been done to death. While I made it clear in initial communications that it would be discussing actual gameplay mechanics that find themselves in a great deal of games, one staffer’s misunderstanding led to the answer that literal gaming convention, PAX, had been done to death.

In celebration of that answer, I turned this week’s attention to gatherings of gamers. This week’s topic: What is your favorite gaming expo, conference or convention? Answers are based on each event’s concepts/ideals, writers’ personal experiences at the event or wishes to go to them and join in on the fun.

Martin Benn (Twitter)

My favorite expo is E3. It is the primer of the convention season that takes place during the AAA release offseason. Any big news usually comes out there, and yes, I understand the irony of saying that given Microsoft’s Tomb Raider announcement at GamesCom. Normally it is where Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony even the playing ground.

Typically, Microsoft is the biggest brand in North America, although Sony and Nintendo both have large representation here, as well. Internationally, Microsoft traditionally does not make a big show of it, again with the caveat of this year’s exclusivity announcements. Lately, Nintendo barely shows up to anything but E3. It just seems that the most exclusives and the most big news are released from all 3 major console manufacturers at E3 and given I don’t play on PC, that is the biggest draw for me.

Rebekah Valentine (Twitter)

I’ve never been to, nor considered the thought I would ever have an opportunity to go to a con in my life. Being fairly new to this topic, and without googling “list of gaming conventions” and picking one that looks fun, I think right now I’d want to go to Blizzcon.

Mostly drawn in because I’m hyped about the recent Warlords of Draenor announcements, but what blew my mind about their event is that those were all real people who played WoW, all in one place to celebrate the game together. Sometimes when I’m playing MMOs, it’s easy to forget that there’s real people on the other side, especially when your interactions become frustrating or downright insulting. I would love to join my fellow orcs and elves and everyone in a celebration of what we all love, and Blizzcon seems to be an awesome place to do it.