America Video Game Expo (Philly 11/3/07 )

[Glitch720]

Day 2. Part 1 of 2

How to be a Journalist Panel

The next day a lot of people showed up at 9am when it just opened and most of the people that were not there day one ran straight to the 1up booth and got a Gamer Tag Card. After the crowed slowly receded from Ziff Davis’s booth they all scattered to look for things to do before the “Breaking in: how to get into the game industry” started but, not really anyone went to the Journalism panel, maybe like 25 people showed up which was good it kept the energy on the room pretty relaxed. I learned a lot about my ideas and theories about going for journalism as a career. The Panel was made up of Bill Kunkel (AKA the Game Doctor), There was also a rep from Ziff Davis who looked like Dan Shu but was the leader or marketing and sites for the magazines and web site. The last person on the panel (I forget her name at the moment) was on there and had probably some of the best views on writing because she has been doing for about 15-20 years. Also I was not the only allgames.com person there, Kyle Jones from Video Game Outsides was in the room and I didn’t even know it until he went up after the panel and started to hand out cards for contacts.

Meeting up with Tommy Tallarico

After the Journalism Panel; Kyle Jones, Bill Kunkel, and I stated talking about how online games are bad now and don’t do the right things well and start to alienate the hardcore. It was a deep conversation that led to our love for Shadowrun on the 360 and windows vista. Well as we were talking I made the suggestion that we get going to the theater a little ways down the hall to get seats fro Moral Kombat, which is a documentary made by “Spencer Halpin.” The movies main purpose was to show the good sides and bad sides of what the game companies do right and what the legal system thinks about it and what they would rather have us do with it. The movie over all was really good and everyone in the movie agreed (to a point) that games are not bad but it’s the content and the people that make the content bad. Well while we all were waiting for the movie to start because there was not nearly enough people in the theater and the original start time to warrant its start, I went up and decided to chill with Tommy Tallarico and Becky “Aktrez” Young. I walked up sat behind them and as he acknowledged me I said “Yo Tommy T I’m from allgames.” He looked back we shook hands and questioned why Blackwolf’s ass was not here… Well mostly Tommy said “What? Lets call that fucker and get him here.”

Well as Tommy got up to handle some business I looked over and spotted Becky killing her ds battery with some bejeweled type game. Well I figured I had a good icebreaker to get her head out of her almost dead DS. I pull out my ipod and show her “Becky’s Orgasm,” which Scot was so nice to send me when I asked for some mp3’s for a soundboard. She looks up in shock to see the bain of her All Games visits looking her in the face, which she’s going to kill you Scot for sending that too me but I digress. Tommy came back and then got hit on by this guy trying to do a podcast and wanted Tommy to be on the show. This kid didn’t really have a brain because he wanted Tommy to come to his hotel and do a recording. Well I suggested that instead of making this big and confusing why doesn’t he bring the computer equipment tomorrow and do an interview and edit the interview into his podcast, they both agreed as the movie started.

Moral Kombat

Moral Kombat a movie directed by Spencer Halpin depicting both sides of the video game controversy was shown at the convention. After being through several rough drafts of the movie the final cut looked pretty well thought out and edited to be seamless with game video and interviews. One of my favorite things when it comes to this is how they would overcast an interviewees face with a character that closely related them in video game form. At one point they over laid Lorne Lanning’s face over the dark wizard in the original wow trailer, which made the audience laugh pretty hard to say the least.

After all that was said and done we sat through it, which was good the only problem both Becky and I had was that Tommy would not stop yelling “Tron!!!!!!” when video of the game showed up on screen, which was fairly often.

After the movie was over En’Gai came into the theater and we had probably one of the best face-to-face conversations I had at the convention. We discussed the movie and the thoughts of how it covered the game industry and congresses take on video game violence. The conversation was cut short because we had to get ready for the panel that En’Gai was there to moderate the movies panel that would put Lorne Lanning against Jack Thompson. Well till then we had to go out and line up because since Jack was there everyone was subjected to a weapons and camera check. That’s right no weapons in a room full of Gamers, and Jack in Philly, can you believe it?

After an hour of waiting in line to have my bag searched I was permitted in as the debate started. First question was to the extent of “How did you come to be in the movie and why?” Jack said (to some degree) he didn’t feel his side of the conversation would be upheld well if he didn’t make an appearance, Lorne came back with something similar to Jack’s response. After that initial start the debate got into a bunch of false statements from Jack and Lorne confronting him when it came to him making the worse of free air time he got on Fox, CNN and NBC news whenever there was a potential video game issue. Although Jack was ripped into peaces in more ways then one Jack did make some agreeable statements in all and the debate ended with a handshake and some low-ball jokes by Jack about himself.

The debate was video taped and should be popping up soon on the internet as a VGXPO special somewhere.

[Glitch720]

Sorry it took me a while to get this part out haven't been good with managing my time lately.