It’s been a few weeks since Gamestart was over but this year, they held SEA SUMMIT at the Pixel Building and while it was free, you had to register for it. Mainly it had industry talks about gaming.
I went to the “last” day because it had more talks about esports and streaming. If I’m not making a game or in a company making or writing one, at least I can learn more about streaming it.
The keynote on that Friday was by Yoko Taro and he did give an insightful general theme of how characters for his games are made and the story.
Then a panel about why brands sponsor gaming & Esports. Here’s the TL;DR. Depending on their brands, they want people to grow, support them or know that they will have a growing reach and in that reach, it’s also about advertising isn’t it?
So you don’t have to be 1 million +++ viewers but you can have a significant amount that is beneficial to both sides. Oh and they do note it’s a bit awkward if you have 10 or so followers, no reasons or whatever and just email “Hi, I want this, sponsor me” etc. A deck might help on why you should be sponsored and an introduction of who you are helps a lot.
Product sponsorship is “easier” because the companies have the items but money sponsorship can be a bit harder to justify.
The workshop I attended was about streaming and ok, here’s the “instructors” for the session. It was informative since it involved technical stuff like set up to troubleshooting and finding your own brand and schedule. Check out Raijinshi or Lyliasylmeria‘s stream, heh or join Fundeavour to learn more about streaming.
Ok enough SEA Summit, Saturday was Game Start and I arrived around 6.30am to queue up to be one of the 300 people to get the free lootbags.
Yeah. I just wanted to experience it for the first time. Here’s a little summary of what happened or just some significant areas to see.
The actual entry started around 11am, 10am for VIPs and contenders in the games. But ok I made it through! I’ll show you want loot I had for 2017’s bag.
Alyse the mascot of GS was there near the entrance so yay, hi!
Retro gaming of course happened. I saw some ataris and well, it’s a popular section with really classic games. I didn’t really have to play because… HUR HUR I HAVE THEM AT HOME.
Secret Lab’s chair race happened again and that was fun to watch. If you see the background, the artist alley was in that section nearby too.
Ok this one is cool, Hado games available at Scape is some real life esports thing.
Players wear goggles and wrist thingies. On the screen you can see them attacking each other with beams and shields to defend themselves. So you can probably do a barrel roll and other sort of stuff while attacking people with lasers in this virtual world.
Table top area was pretty exciting, lots of players and different card games and there was even D&D happening. It depends if you managed to sign up or at least go there in time since there were limited tables too.
Here’s the Play Station lounge for members. Nearby there was the Drinkery which had food and drinks (as per name) and while it wasn’t cheap, it was affordable.
Hmmm yeah, there was a token system in this year’s Game Start which might be a little of a miss? You could play ‘arcade’ games like Uncle Ringo there but with nerf guns, stacking games etc.
It was more of a miss to me though because you can win tickets but you’d need at least a hundred or so to redeem a GS t-shirt or some small item. We passed the tickets we won to someone else since we were leaving after that. Fun but a bit “Errrr”. Maybe they could get actual Uncle Ringo if they want an ‘arcade’ area there.
And this was happening one floor below Game Start. I just wanted to show you this pic because of Elmo.
Yeah.
OK THE LOOT. Everything above was from the bag I got at Game Start. A very large Armageddon mouse pad, a keychain, a handphone pocket and a shadowverse card.
The rest I got from visiting the booths or buying at the artist alley.
My comments? Well, I enjoyed SEA Summit a lot so no worries on that.
Game Start itself, my main issue is the darkness. I went to PAX Australia to look see too and their digital side was not as dark as the darkest area for Singapore.
It’s okay to be lit up, you know. Please. Please have more lights for Game Start 2018. All the other stuff for Game Start is pretty much dependent on their budget/sponsors/games to appear. But what I know you guys can control is the lighting so pleaaaaaaaaase. We would like to see where we are or the items at artist alleys easily.
Oh! And um, maybe you guys need to work on the arcade part with the tokens if you want to do it again next year or at least let people know what sort of games the tokens are needed for.
Besides that, good job guys! The drinkery was nice, so are the people. Just you know… DARKNESSSSS.
