In an announcement that is sure to please some but disappoint others, EB Games announced their intentions to do the expo for 2012, however instead of holding it on the Gold Coast, in which they have held their managers conferences for a number of years now, they will be moving to Sydney, more specifically the Allphones Arena which is 17,000 sqm in lieu of the Gold Coast Convention Center which is only 10,000 sqm.
I am in the local area to the Gold Coast convention center so I am personally rather disappointed that they will be moving it due to the strong relationship EB Games seems to have with the center, the locality of it and of course – it is a nice newish venue that is in the local vicinity of hotels, tourist destinations and essentially, everything you would need is in walking distance. Not to say that their new venue is bad or anything – suppose it is a small bias of being local.
I will admit, size-wise they could have used more space, and whilst the arena was in my opinion perfect sized and attendance of any more people per session may have resulted in endlessly long queues (Regardless of how big a gamer you are, $29 – $100 for one short demo would not be worth it), the expansion would permit the company to let more indie gamers, smaller game publishers or more creative booths (Not to say what they had wasn’t amazing).
Anyway, I do hope they choose to return to the Gold Coast, otherwise I do hope those in Sydney will enjoy it next year. This is not the first gaming event The Otaku’s Study hopes to attend, unfortunately I cannot say what will be happening for the first half of 2012 as I am locked into academic prospects, but after that I hope to attend E3 or hell, even next years EB Expo depending on dates.
