By definition trade shows are far from exciting, what with being all about just one thing and generally just an occasion for people to showcase their new products, technologies etc… in whatever field it is that’s the focus. I can think of a few expections, having done my fair share of trade shows in the last 10 years: music and video games. Well ok they’re not boring to me because I’m into both things heavily. But really what other subjects could make a trade show appealing? What’s that? the sex industry you say? Perverts… :lol:

Anyways, I’ve been going to DJ/music trade shows for the last 4 years regularly, mainly PLASA in London, which used to be the most interesting of all the European trade shows but has in recent years become a ghost of its former ‘glory’. All it offers these days is the chance to catch up with people you haven’t seen in ages and piss about with new equipment and also pretend to be remotely interested in whatever marketing BS the reps come at you with. I also went to ECTS a few times while I lived in London, which was the European equivalent of E3 or Tokyo Game Show. Good fun but on a really small scale. By and large I learnt soon enough that trade shows are only really good for one thing - catching up with people, getting drunk and pissing about (ok and sometimes actually doing some work).

With the last PLASA being quite disappointing (actually it was shit) I was really looking forward to Tokyo Game Show - the second biggest video game trade show on the planet after E3 and by the sounds of it and stories from my mates, quite possibly the most fun you can have with geeks in one day, in a enclosed space. TGS takes place yearly, at Makuhari Messe a giant exhibition hall just outside central Tokyo, in Chiba prefecture. This year the show ran for 4 days, with the first 2 open to trade only and last 2 open to the public. I opted for the trade days, purely because from my past experience trade days tend to be better - less people, more exclusive stuff to be seen, and more importantly more (and easier) freebies to be had.

And TGS definitely lived up to the hype. For a start Makuhari Messe is huge, compared to the London alternatives I’ve visited - easily 3 times bigger than the Earl’s Court expo centres. After that the experience totally didn’t compare with my previous ones - for sheer scale and products/entertainment on offer: from massive stands, decorated in any shape and form you can imagine (stand outs definitely include the Metal Gear stand decked out as a military camp and the Square Enix stands) with some amazing artwork/decorations to countless pin ups, giant preview screens and theaters, freebies, people dressed up as god knows what and the amount of video games you can play, TGS really is a geek’s wet dream.

So I spent a day geeking it out - queing to play new games, gasping at some of the costumes people are paid to dress up in for 4 days, grabbing free stuff, trying to blag more free stuff and just generally being like ‘whoa’ or ‘wtf?’. It was a pretty good laugh and definitely made me realise how little the trade shows I’d been to have been. One thing TGS’ open days does have which I’m gutted I missed out on is hundreds of people into cosplay (costume play) aka people who dress up like their video game/anime heroes and prance about the place. I would have happily paid 1000 yen to see that :lol: .

There’s some amazing stuff being done with the next generation of games - personally I’ve not really followed games much in recent years, preferring to indulge in old classics which were generally better and not so time consuming. My only video game pleasures are on my DS these days when I travel and the last console I owned was a Game Cube. But I do enjoy checking out new stuff when I get the chance - thing is nine times out of ten, it’s disappointing. Whether it’s the gameplay, handling, storyline or any number of things, games might look a hell of a lot more realistic these days but that’s not to say they’re any better than before. With some exceptions of course. By and large though, like most industries today it’s bloated out with a lot of fraff.

I spent a bit of time checking out the new Metal Gear Solid game, which looks simply amazing and unlike most games is actually backed by a pretty solid and detailed storyline and plot. Thing is, like most good games today it’s the kinda stuff that totally sucks your life out, requiring so much time and dedication to play that personally I find it takes the fun out of it a little. Of course there are other, lighter alternatives like say Gran Turismo or a sports game, but again while graphics might be out of this world, there’s always something which lets it down along the line - and if it’s not in game, it’ll be the price.

The most fun I had on the day was probably from playing the new Wii fighting games like Naruto and Dragon Ball which integrate the controller’s motion sensors into the fighting aspect - it’s totally nerdy and pointless, I know that, but damn it’s good fun. And simple too. Lowest common denominator and all that you know? Also the new Resident Evil on Wii, which is basically a better version of House of the Dead type games is pretty sweet - again just because it’s a no non-sense game, focused on the playing experience more than anything.

I had a chat with a friend of mine who’s an avid gamer of many years. We were chatting about role playing games and just about story telling in games in general. I’m a big RPG fan, have been for years, with games like Final Fantasy attracting my interest over pretty much anything else (I know I’m a geek, I’ve come to terms with it years ago). He was too for a few years, but then changed his mind. So we were chatting about this and he mentioned how there’s been, for a few years now, this big debate about whether or not games are art. Books have been published, studies made, debates had and they continue to go on. He was saying though that no matter how intricate and deeply thought out a game is, like say your current/recent RPGs, it ultimately falls well short of being art in say the same way as a film or book. Taking on the RPG example, no matter how deep the story, how interwoven with previously built mythos and plotting, it’s still just a game - walk around, fight some monsters/guys/whatever, clear a dungeon, come back out, talk to some dudes, clear another dungeon, repeat till the end. The story is only ever a prop for the gameplay, the actual human/machine interaction.

While I debated that there was a case for some games to be considered art, like say the Final Fantasy series, I’ve got to admit that since thinking this over I’ve come to agree with his point a lot more than I did at first. Ultimately no matter how deep things get, how realistic, it’s all just entertainment. Which is the same with movies or books, but there’s a dimension with those more traditional artforms which is lacking in the majority of video games. I do reckon there are some games which have transcendeted the genre and could rightly be argued to be art (I’d still say the Final Fantasy as a whole series, but also things like the Metal Gear Solid series which are a lot more grounded in reality, or Resident Evil) but the thing is the argument is flawed by trying to box video games into art alongside traditional storytelling formats, like movies and books. Games aren’t a traditional format. But by and large I do agree that video games are just entertainment at best, for the wide majority of it. And TGS only confirmed that.

Anyways enough seriousness, I’ve taken a whole bunch of pics which you can check out below. I’ve been meaning to write something about storytelling in general which I’ll be doing soon, hopefully.

TGS 2007 Flickr set

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written by Laurent \\ tags: geeking, storytelling, TGS, video games