VGXPO Triples Attendance Numbers, Brains Melt

(original gangstas)

Yes, we’re still covering the America’s Video Game Expo (“videogame”, folks). And yes, we’re just as shocked as you by an announcement today that its attendance numbers more than tripled this year. According to VGXPO affiliates NBC10, “the 2008 America’s Video Game Expo more then tripled its attendance versus 2007, with 24,674 people attending over a three day period.” When Ed Fleming, VGXPO Executive Director, told us way back when that he expected to triple this years attendance numbers, we scoffed — no doubt about it. When we were putting together the montage for y’all to peruse, it was obvious that the show garnered better numbers than last year, but there’s no way we could have guessed it had tripled in attendance! Also, according to this press release, “VGXPO 2009 is currently scheduled to take place October 9-11, 2009 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.” — major publishers will (hopefully) be hard pressed to miss next year.

We’ll be posting a few more videos over the next few days from the VGXPO that fell by the wayside while editing. Hit the break to read more from the exciting press release and our vitriol filled comments.

The press release also included some choice comments from exhibitors and convention producers alike. Amber Dalton of the PMS Clan said, “There is so much to be said for what VGXPO has become for the video game industry… the core gamers, plus the casual games audience, were here to play all the top games.” And while our experience with Time Traveler and Marble Madness were certainly enthralling, we wouldn’t exactly call them “top games” — we wouldn’t even call them “relevant games” in the context of the videogame industry today (in that they’re, ya know, arcade machines from 20+ years ago…). In an effort to provide full disclosure, we should probably note there were people physically playing Far Cry 2 and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King in the building, just not very many of them.

In fact, from the cancelled events to the near-constant shilling, we here at Geekadelphia don’t really understand how 25,000 people attended the show without a Shays’ Rebellion-style uprising. As long as it stays relevant, we’ll keep covering it, but that doesn’t mean we have to support it or like it. Any stories you’d like to tell us from your experience at the expo — good or bad — we’d love to hear ‘em below in the comments.