The eGames & Entertainment Expo, the biggest date on the Melbourne gaming calender isn't even a week away. Gamers are going to get a chance to get hands on with new and unreleased titles, compete in competitions and get up close and personal with celebrities from the gaming world. In amongst all this action is Peter Barlow, one of the minds behind eGames. We caught up with Peter today to have a chat about the event, behind the scenes and what visitors can expect to see.
Matt: Thanks for taking time out of your schedule to catch up with us Peter.
Peter Barlow: No problem!
Matt: So tell us a bit about yourself.
Peter Barlow: Basically I run a marketing and design business called CyberActive Media, and a while ago we came up with the concept of the eGames & Entertainment Expo. We contacted the guys we're doing it with, Australasian Exhibition and Events, and it's pretty much becoming a very consuming product now, we do some other stuff as well but that's one of our main products.
Matt: Whats your involvement in eGames?
Peter Barlow: Well
officially I created the title, *laughs* but content and marketing
manager for eGames is what I do. My primary focus is to make sure
there's lots of activity and a lot going on, making sure the main stage
has things that will get peoples attention and the interactive zones
where people can get hands on with games and play.
Matt: How long has eGames been in the works for?
Peter Barlow: It goes quite a way back, probably 2003. Elroy, was helping out with the blog last year, he and I sat down and we had a look at a bit of footage from an overseas event and thought 'this is something we do in the future'. It was always in the back of our minds and one day we thought 'Well, it's time to bring it forward.'
Matt: What prompted eGames, game development has been happening in
Australia for a while now, let alone game fanatics, what made 2006 the
year to bring out eGames?
Peter Barlow: What I came to realise a couple of years ago was that there were a lot of small events or pockets of activity going on, and I felt a lot of people especially in the community were working incredibly hard for very little exposure. So what I thought was if we could create one big event a year where everyone could get involved and that everyone could feel that they were a part of, that all the hard work they do all year round in a sense caps at this point. To give them the ability to come to the event, cover it, meet people and make it a pinnacle of the year in a sense. So we thought now was the time.
Matt: All three next-gen consoles are out this year, in terms of eGames what's changed in the 12 months? What are we going to see new and different at eGames this year?
Peter Barlow: On paper you would say that it's the fact that we have representation from some of the game publishers in terms of having their own stands this year, that was one of the things we hoped to achieve last year. Publishers worked closely with Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft to make sure that they were well represented, but they've gone the next step this year and actually put their own stands in.
Matt: So you've got the folks from Ubisoft and Activision..
Peter Barlow: And Atari, EA and another one called D3 Publishing who are showcasing 'Dark Sector' even though it's not being released till January
Matt: Hands on time with unreleased games, exciting for everyone! Like Super Mario Galaxy...
Peter Barlow: It's brilliant!
Matt: Have publishers been throwing themselves at you after the success of last year?
Peter Barlow: It's not much a 'throwing themselves' thing, we still have to work very hard to achieve what we've done, but I think they're starting to get a grasp as to the potential of what they can archive by being involved, that it's great timing in terms of title releases at this time of year and obviously with the lead into Christmas there's always a big ramp up with games coming out. So it's a great kind of stepping stone into the Christmas retail period so I think that in years to come publishers are going to be using us as one of the platforms in their marketing budget.
Matt: So what else is going to be on show for people who aren't as into gaming?
Peter Barlow: Our ultimate goal is to have a games focused exhibition that broadly covers digital entertainment as a whole and that's something that we'll continue to work to achieve, for example having Yamaha coming on board this year and demonstrating all their home theatre and sound is fantastic. With Panasonic and Sony being the screen sponsors, they're showcasing all their new screens. I guess it gives people the understanding that there's more to digital entertainment than just games and like I said as time goes on there's an ambition to have a really global product covering everything right across the board, all your music devices and all your digital entertainment devices. With all the games though it's hard to get anything else in this year!
Matt: Just in general size of eGames '07, are we going to have to walk a lot
further this year to reach one end of the expo from the other?
Peter Barlow: It's the same foot print as last year, but it's a lot more packed in terms of what's there. But we're not as far down in the exhibition centre this time so no one's going to have to walk as far this year! *laughs* It's a long walk, I didn't reliese how long it was until having to walk up and down it last year.
Matt: Tell us about the eSports zone, what are gamers going to find there.
Peter Barlow: That's going to be a beauty, it's been organized this year by the guys from Team Immunity who were there last year as well, but they've had a lot more active role in setting it up this year. So they're organizing a whole variety of different competitions and probably one of the features is going to be the family competition where they're going to get parents challenging the kids. They're getting everything really hands on in that area, show casing a variety of different games and getting people to challenge the team and things like that
Matt: So you're going to have the eSports team playing against gamers who walk in?
Peter Barlow: Yeah exactly, so if you've got a team and you want to go down and challenge them you can get in there and have a go.
Matt: Now one thing that a lot of readers have been screaming about is the simple fact that eGames is in Melbourne. Are their any plans to turn it into a road show at all to bring it to other capital cities?
Peter Barlow: The plans are there to get it into Sydney at least, and we still have that ambition. We believe that establishing it as a premier event in Melbourne and having people understand it's on that time every year is the first object, and once it really becomes solid as that product, we'll look at taking it another time of year into another state.
Matt: So those interstate do have something to look forward to in the future?
Peter Barlow: Well that's the hope, that's always been the plan.
Matt: So this year we've got the chance to get hands on with unreleased games, areas set up for game lovers to compete, the eSport zone, competitions, PC build offs, industry panels for those wanting to get into the industry, keynotes from developers and console makers and live music performances by Final Fantasy XII's composer.... it's already looking like a huge show, is there anymore surprises in the hidden in the eGames bag?
Peter Barlow: Ultimately you will find there's a lot in terms of game titles that haven't been finalized, so when you come in you'll get your hands on titles that arn't on the list currently. That's the big one.
Matt: Lastly, in between making the eGames Expo happen, what are you playing yourself at the moment?
Peter Barlow: I'm waiting in anticipation for the next version of Wipeout, I got the original Playstation the first week it came out which was bundled with Wipeout and haven't stopped playing it since. Currently I'm playing Wipeout on PSP but there's all this talk of Wipeout HD coming to the Playstation 3 so that's the big one for me!
Matt: Thanks for your time Peter, we're all looking forward to eGames '07!
Peter Barlow: Thanks very much.
11/11/2007
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