I was totally ready for my first gaming conference yesterday. FirstlookFestival in Utrecht, supposedly the biggest gaming experience event in the Benelux. My only other experience in Cons was HobbitCon, so I was kinda surprised at how busy it was to even get in. Large masses of people, impatient to swarm to the various booths. I had seen quickly that I wasn’t the oldest one there, but I saw too that the majority of the public was young and male. What made the sea of black, grey and jeans-blue. A lot nicer however, where the various cosplayers. Simone and I saw the most beautiful creations, I was baffled at how much work people put in their costumes. And they stayed in character, no matter what. Great actors!
The Nintendo booth was pretty busy of course. One could try Zelda and Chibi Robo Zip Lash, and on the main stage there was a presentation about Mario Maker and Splatoon. The lines for Nintendo were huge, but a lot of people used that time to play on their 3DS’s, which netted us many Streetpass hits. We scored the special code that they were giving out for Hoopa (a special Pokemon) and got a mask from the game Fallout. Other then that, not many goodies: I refuse to stand in a mass of people hoping to catch a t-shirt that Ubisoft is throwing in the waiting crowd, like a pack of hungry wolves being thrown a scrap of meat.
It was fun touring the grounds, seeing all the stands with merchandise and watching the cosplayers. Oh, and picking up many, many Streetpass hits. I was a bit disappointed that there was no Amiibo card in sight, and I had harbored some small hope that Nintendo might have the Amiibo Card Collectors Album at their booth, but no such luck. They did have the big yarn Yoshi on display, and the Animal Crossing Amiibo that will be packed with the Animal Crossing Festival game.
We had a grand day together, I would have liked to see less testosterone powered games and more other titles, but that’s a topic for another article I guess!
Hey, this is the second year i’m going and this year was really busy, especially at Nintendo’s booth. The main reason for that is that they really organised it crappy this year. People were allowed in and stay as long as they liked to try all games, which means the line was incredibly SLOW this year. We stood in line for 2 hours so my boyfriend could play Starfox and we just made it. He was the last person allowed in. The people behind us stood there for 2 hours too, but couldn’t get into the Nintendo booth anymore. They apologized and said they do it differently next year, but it still meant my bf could only play 9 minutes of Starfox, and that was already officially after closing time. I couldn’t play anything. We are still not sure that was worth it, we could have played both Lara Croft AND Assassins Creed AND still would have time left to see the rest of the floor if we had skipped Nintendo.
Other than the Nintendo disappointment, we liked it. Personally i thought there were a lot of women there. Of course there are a lot of young males, but i was not disappointed in the amount of girls this year.
My favorite games are adventure and RPG’s, so for me there was a lot to see. I’m curious what kind of games you would have liked to see there 🙂
I’m glad we skipped the Nintendo lines then! I must have walked by you several times, as we rounded the booth on several occasions to get Streetpass hits!
I knew of course that there’d be a lot of games like Assassins creed and such, but I had hoped for a little more about games like Happy Home Designer. Nintendo had Chibi Robo of course, and some of the Indie games looked good though. But a lot of the Streetpass hits I got had played HHD as the last game played, but still, not even Amiibo cards for sale. At least, I didn’t see them.
Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast yesterday though!
Yeah, we stood in the Nintendo line from about 4, so we should have seen each other 🙂 I had a good time too, apart from the waiting 😛 I haven’t seen anything about HHD either. MediaMarkt had the game for sale, but only the one without the card reader, so useless to me. We need to start a trading group for the cards 😉
Are you still in the list of our FB group, Ladies and Gaming? Some trading going on there! A lot of the Dutch ladies have the game too!
No, i’ve never been in that group. I’ll have a look and sign up 🙂 Thanks for letting me know!
Haha, that’s an awesome Fallout mask you snagged. I’m not surprised by the male heavy attendance. Despite what you may read, when it comes to hardcore gaming guys still dominate the ladies. Not good when visiting a packed convention, as we tend to smell worse than the fairer sex.
You look cool in the mask. It seems you had a good time.
Thanks, my daughter said I looked quite scary!
Just read your article about your experience – great! I smacked myself in the face when I got to the part where you got the event Hoopa!! :-O Whaaat.. I’ve been waiting on that to hit the US for months! (Hope I didn’t somehow miss it just recently lol. I’ll scour for news on something everyday for weeks, and then simply forget for many more weeks.) Nice pics, hope to see more! The AC Amiibo look ever cuter irl, if that’s possible! I like how they’re all standing on grass at their bases.. Shame that you didn’t find what you were looking for. :-/ HHD is where it’s at right now! LOL about the scraps of meat. xP
I would have tried to bring you a Hoopa code, my friend, but they are region locked! Crazy, this region locking, as if Hoopa knows in which real country it is! I hope you still manage to find it, over here it’s solely to be gotten at events.
Oh how fun! I’ve only been to our local Comic Con a few times but I love seeing all the booths and cosplayers as well as the camaraderie of shared interests. I would love to attend a gaming convention.
I do think I’ll be going to some more cons, it was good fun to just sit there, let the Streetpass hits stream in and watch people!