First some good news for everyone! As of yesterday, you are able to purchase your tickets for the first ever EBGames Expo, held at the Gold Coast Convention center this October. If you would like to purchase tickets you can either purchase them online from the official website or alternatively, you can go into your local EB Games store and purchase tickets. There are two types of different tickets, the normal tickets which cost $29.95 and VIP tickets which cost $99.95. Currently the demand for VIP tickets has been high, and only tickets for the Sunday show is available, so get in fast to secure your VIP ticket. What do you get with a VIP ticket? Just the following awesome benefits:
What will the VIP Experience ticket include?
- Red Carpet Entry into the exhibition
- Priority Seating to all Arena Events
- Express Access to selected games inside the Exhibition
- VIP viewing area for the Exhibition grand finale (Limited numbers).
- Individually numbered VIP Lanyard
- VIP Showbag with limited edition GameInformer plus heaps more cool stuff
- Souvenir Photo from the Green Screen Studio
- Backstage access to media interview recordings. (Subject to scheduling and availability. Invites will be limited to VIP guests, who must RSVP, tickets will be awarded on a first come first served basis)
- More features of the VIP Experience will be announced soon.
or in other words, the true EB Expo experience can only be obtained through the VIP Pass! But what about the publishers attending? You might be asking, whilst I do not believe it is a final list, there are a number of different publishers that will be in attendence, including:
- 2K
- Activision
- Bethesda
- Bluemouth
- Capcom
- Codemasters
- Disney Interactive
- EA
- inComm
- Konami
- Logitech
- Mindscape
- Namco Bandai
- Nintendo
- Parrot.AR.Drone
- Plantronics
- Playstation
- PopCap
- QVS
- Razer
- SEGA
- Square Enix
- THQ
- Turtle Beach
- Ubisoft
- XBox360
In other words, many of the big names from Australia and other countries will be in attendance! So purchase your ticket and get your hands on experience with the games and feast your eyes on exclusive previews you will only be able to see at this event. If it was skipped or not present at the E3, there is a good chance you may see it here instead.
Now that the good has been delivered, the bad must be as well…. more after the jump.
Now the bad news, all Borders Stores in Australia are being shut down. Borders stores have been in Australia for many a year and if I had not first randomly come across the Chermside Borders store approximately two or three years ago, I wouldn’t have half the manga collection I have now. Whilst there is no set date for individual stores to be closed, although it is suggested it would take approximately a month or two for them to shut down, they are in an “Everything Must Go!” mode so everything in-store is between 20 to 40 percent off.
This does sadden me however. I am a book lover, alongside my love of games and anime, and the fact that one of the biggest chains of bookstores in Australia is shutting down permanently could mean some trouble for readers, non-online shoppers and book publishers alike, as all of them do require a strong chain such as this to keep them well supplied. Whilst there are other book stores around, although seemingly reducing in numbers as time passes, Borders acted as a one stop shop for everything, alongside a quick coffee fix to enjoy whilst you read the new book your purchased.
The online store is still slated to remain for those in Australia who want to have a source of books from all over the world, however I still don’t think it beats going into a store, browsing the shelves and picking out a book based on, in my case, the cover. For all the upcoming information on the closure, keep an eye on the facebook group HERE.
