Thailand Game Show 2008
- Ethan Cole
If there is one thing that they are good at here, it’s copying. Much like the 2007 (with the exception of piss-poorly Photoshop bastardized E3 Booth photos) they have the tone and look of a “games show” right.
Originally set to coincide with “Children’s day” like the year before, and assumingly the year following – the event takes place over four days. The differences being in keynotes by people no one’s really heard of, and competitions – the final rounds of some events being against some Thai celebrity.
This, the second year, was postponed and shifted to February, the days and time still the same – being Thursday 21st to Sunday 24th. Evidently Sunday is also known as ‘family day’ – a talkative taxi driver informed me that this was due to the fact people go together with their families and did stuff. I felt a bit retarded… something this obvious… Then I remembered I didn’t give a fuck.
Something about children’s-day, one could read deep into the meaning; being joyous at one's inner child. But that's just bullshit – much like a number of games on show; as one would expect, this is not an international “game show” or trade event, but rather a locally organized event, reminiscent of their local premieres for foreign movies. It would be sad if it wasn’t so funny. In fact, it is sad, because it stopped being funny after I was witness to the “Return of The King” “Premiere” where some seemingly random tall white-guy was hired to cosplay as Gandalf… I didn’t get as far as the dance troupe (which no local event is complete without). But perhaps I’m being to callous… almost all white-folk here seem tall, that part was redundant.
Back to Thai-GS (I refuse to use ‘TGS’ for obvious reasons) 2008, the first day; I stand in line for press registration, wondering if there would again be a shiny-surprisingly-well-weighted pen for procurement. There wasn’t, maybe they got wise back in 2007, as the pen worked well for prodding people – particularly as it was well balanced. For the record, this wasn’t theft; given the cost of entry with the false promise of free stuff – think of it as compensation, as the ‘stuff’ given is synonymous with trash – except maybe a little cleaner…
And so it begins… I will only be reporting on the first [and maybe] last day of this event. Given that it’s almost like a fan convention with some local support and investment/advertising opportunities, as opposed to a trade event where great news is announced. The two names worth mentioning would be Asiasoft and EA.
Tickets 50B standard entry fee and 80B ticket if you want to play games – with no apparent time limit, but one usage only. The games available being: Tekken 5 Online, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Pacman Classic Wii, Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, Burnout Paradise (PS3), Halo 3 Smackdown 2008 (the last two not so occupied). Good enough for folks who can’t afford the consoles, but also peculiar given that most department stores have game-sections where some of these titles can be played. Of course there’s a captive audience – and the lure of the ‘next gen’ consoles which are now here officially at a price most unacceptable but if you know where to go you get the international price (just don’t expect any of the respective companies to give a fuck about your warranty).