The first annual Austin Gaming Expo (AGE) was this past Saturday, July 26, 2003, and we here at Snackbar Games made our first public appearance. Since this was the first AGE, nobody was really sure what kind of turn out to expect. In the end, I believe we had over 2,000 people in attendance over the 10 hours of the show. All in all I think it was a huge success for everyone involved and especially for one lucky winner of the Snackbar Games Xbox Raffle.
My Saturday started long before anyone else’s. You see, we were still wrapping things up for the Expo the Friday night before. I made the wonderful mistake of putting the base of the sign off until the last minute and so I was relegated to finishing it on Friday, at midnight. Things went from bad to worse when I broke it and had to improvise. Needless to say I got to bed about 4:30am and got up about 6am to head up to Austin. So it felt as though my Saturday started about 7am on Friday when I got up for work that day. Needless to say it was a long but excellent day.
So after arriving in Austin, we setup the booth and proceeded to wait for the masses. Dots and I just kinda hung out at the table while everyone took a look around before the doors opened. Apparently right before 10am, the lines in the lobby stretched all the way outside. I would say that is a pretty impressive feat for a first year show. At any rate, the doors opened and the flood of people came in. Thus began the beginning of the end.
I don’t think that any of us had anticipated the amount of work it was to sit at a table for 10 hours and tell people about the site. We even made up a sweet looking sign for the table, but in the end we all ended up just shy of hoarse and tired of talking. Of course, there was much confusion about who we were and what we really did. We had several people think we were a development group and thus we were asked what games we were working on. We kindly let them know what the SB was all about. We all took turns walking around, manning the booth, and passing out things to people still waiting in line to get in. We all had our interesting conversations and got to meet some ultra cool people. I apologize to anyone that I forget, I was not all there at the expo and thus, I may have forgotten your name. A few of the people we met at the expo:
- James Lewis of BlackChopper.com
- Bill Harris of GoneGold.com
- Scott of NumbThumb.com
I know I already mentioned Black Chopper in a news post this week but they are nearing completion on their Classic Console Adapter (CCA). The CCA will convert your classic console controllers into USB for use on your computer with an emulator. I don’t think I need to reiterate our stance on piracy and Black Chopper is very clear in their faq about how this relates to the legality of emulation and copyrights. This is definately a cool product and I eagerly await its completion.
There was quite a bit to see at the AGE in terms of old school hardware and one of the highlights was the AGE Museum. The AGE museum had on display every console from the Magnavox Odyssey thru the current generation consoles. I tried my best to get clear pictures of all the consoles on display so be sure to check out those pics. Serious props to the guys who managed to round up all those consoles
Another show highlight was our very own Wraith making it to the fi
nals of the Lan’s Edge Halo FFA Tourney. Wraith didn’t win but he did a superb job of representing the SB.
I know many of you are reading this just to see the AGE pictures and without further adu, here are links to galleries on our site, AtariAge.com, BlackChopper.com, and AGE:
I can guarantee you that there is probably a lot more that I would have addressed had I gotten a full night’s sleep and I apologize for that. Next year I will make sure I am fully rested so I can do a better job of documenting the expo. The official AGE site should have a more comprehensive wrapup online in the next few days or so.
I also want to say thanks to everyone for stopping by the booth and especially to those of you who made the raffle such a succes. Congratulations to Asher Friedman for winning the raffle, and entering more times than anyone else with a whopping 16 tickets. For more info on the Austin Gaming Expo head on over to AustinGamingExpo.com. See you guys at AGE 2004!
P.S. I remember talking to several people that were supposed to email me for reasons varying from hosting a game in our downloads section to helping spread the word about your tournament. So mix in dropping me an email people.
