It’s time to finish the review of the "Week of the Game Industry". After all, she was at the end of November, and I postponed everything and postponed the review of her event – Red EXPO. By the way, what kind of habit to write everything with a caps?! Well, yes, it doesn’t matter.
In general, the ex-festival of RED EXPO closed (a) “The Week of the Game Industry” and, moreover, the organizers swung much nor a little nor less to make the event a receiver of the game world, who first held at VDNH, and then in Crocus for 14 years in a row.
They even made the same pavilion in Crocus. It is divided into four halls, and the blocks separating their blocks themselves contain several small audiences, where this time various presentations, reports and “round tables” were held for industry specialists.
But, about everything in order.
Evortion scene
The hall, which on the plan is listed as No. 1 (and is immediately to the left of the main entrance), was allocated primarily to e -sports disciplines. All days of the festival there were held PUBG Mobile, Standoff 2, Dota2, Point Blank, Mobile Legends Bang, Superball, Simracing from SMP, Tanks Blitz World.
The final contractions for each game were broadcast on the large screen of the scene located in the corner. And the winners went to the same scene for awarding. Lesta, located already on three stands, also took care of the e -sportsmen and spectators would not torment Jajj and distribute energy drinks to everyone who has subscribed to the community of their games.
By the way, the sponsor of mobile disciplines (Standoff 2, MLBB and PUBG Mobile) was Huawei. And she not only provided her smartphones and tablets to the players, but also organized her own stand with her own “game route”. To participate, it was necessary to play games from the Appgallery online store, take photos with cosplayers and of course subscribe to social networks. A lottery ticket was issued for a complete detour of all four sections of the stand. The chances of winning, however, were small, given the crowd, but at least during the bypass itself it was possible to get all sorts of nishtyaki – stickers, promotional codes, etc. p.
A rather large platform had a familiar SMP Racing game of its car seats. True, if there were some racing Grand Prix with prizes, they were not broadcast on the stage.
Russian indie
Opposite the e -sports hall, to the right of the main entrance was Hall No. 2. It has sections for the organizers, security, press and several business partners of the festival. For visitors, more than 50 indie games were available, most of which were participants in the All-Russian contest “Start the game”, or received a grant from the Institute for the Development of the Internet.
Like the game industry, the projects were quite heterogeneous in genre and scale, as well as the degree of readiness. However, the gameplay this time was having the presence of everyone, even if the demo version was very limited or terribly glitching. It is only a pity that there were not so many of the visitors to the exhibition to try out the opportunity to test the gameplay. That is, for the developers – it is a pity, for those who wanted to learn more about projects and personally test their aspects, it was even into the hands.
For example, I went through a super -complex (according to the developers) Mission in the tactical game Sparta 2035. For which he received a small gift. However, gifts (especially tangerines) were quite frequent on the stand within the framework of various draws.
For the passage of Flashloop demos, they did not give anything, but I enjoyed. The game was clearly made under inspiration from Flashback and Metroid. And the plot refers to Harrison’s “indomitable planet” and Simmons’s “Hyperion”.
The mobile Transmigratio Inc turned out to be a curious project. Something between a global strategy, simulation and pets care. Only as a “pet” acts no less – civilization on the scale of the entire planet. At the same time, people for the most part live, multiply and migrate between the territories on their own. You only push them and solve problems during special events. The game even motivates you not to intervene, since the stronger your “divine influence”, the more people relies on help from above and develop more slowly. Yes, it’s hard to be a god. And yes – you are just playing for a representative of a highly developed civilization that manipulates the life of the planet’s natives.
There was also RPG “Saturn” at one of the stands, but this game is free in Steam and VK Play, so you can play it and so. I also saw Advencur PredEfined, where you play for a robot-dog that helps the detective of a recent cyberpanus investigate the murder. And tactics about the Great Patriotic Red Rubezh, where you can also take the direct control of any of the soldiers. And even passed a short demo of the visual novel “Filmoscope of horrors: green eyes” on children’s horror stories.
The entertainment site
I admit honestly-events like RED EXPO, I https://betcasinoonline.uk/ go not so much to look at new games (this can be done on the Internet) or chat with developers (this is also not a problem now, especially if we are talking about indie commands who are looking for opportunities to tell about their projects), but for entertainment and foul tissue. And for such as I Hall No. 3 (also to the right of the main entrance, further than the hall No. 2) represented all the possibilities.
At the stand of the “world of ships”, visitors were offered a variety of tasks: knit nodes, decipher messages recorded by the ABC Morse, guess sounds and so on. And on a similar site of the World of Tanks, prizes could be obtained for successes with mechanical slot machines-to fill the most blows to mini-breasts, get a ball in mini-basketball, grab the ball with a slap-wrapper.
In general, stands from the organizers (“Lesta of the game”, 1C Game Studios, Vk Play) were very large and included several sections where it was possible to play and perform the mentioned tasks and listen to what they said from the stage. Or, as in the case of the stand of ships, sang.
VK and 1C even had their own "game routes" with awards for passing. Yes, it was for the passage of all (or almost all) points that you could get a custom T -shirt from VK with a printout of statistics in VK Play. True, I was shy to take one – I have too little I have enough, so I chose "by default". And 1C for each activity (take a picture with a cosplayer, play each of the four projects, sign up on social networks) accrued points for which, in turn, one could “buy” posters, T -shirts, waist bags and even socks with the symbol of “caliber” (well, or other game).
The entertainment of the hall even included board games – both in one of the VK Play sections and a separate "Soil zone". But there were enough computer games: 1C brought the last build of the card cuckold "Immortal. Tales of Old Rus’ ", as well as the Korea aircraft system. IL-2 series ", and with a real aviator, chair and even seems to be VR glasses. At the stands of the "world of ships", "World of Tanks" and Tanks Blitz, of course, there were appropriate games (although it was still better to go to Hall No. 1).
In the VK Play zone there were both consoles and a pair of auto-symbol chairs from SMP Racing. And on computers, entire games of games were installed for those who wanted to try out “cloud gaming”. The truth was loaded for quite some time, which is especially dumb, given the hourly payment of the service (of course, there was no restrictions at the exhibition).
Well, there were more games (or rather even prototypes from the Skolkovo complex (it has recently offers the workspace of indie commands) and several more higher educational institutions. In recent years, more and more attention has been paid to disciplines related to the development of games. So it is logical that many decided to declare themselves at an event such as Red EXPO.
Claiming themselves
And finally, hall number 4. Far from the entrance and on the left. It was associated with the "area of the organizers" through a wide passage, but it was also possible to go from the hall No. 1. There are stands of various companies and communities, which are either not very large in themselves, or their business is connected with the gaming industry only partially. As, for example, the manufacturer of the computer periphery A4Tech was presented at the exhibition only by his Bloody game brand.
Were on the stand and rally-loters.
The exception was Astrum Entertainment – the fourth organizer of the exhibition. Apparently the leaders decided not to close with the other three, which is generally clear. But like VK Play, their stand combined several sections-with computers for Warface and other multiplayer competitions, with a scene on which MMORPG announcements with an emphasis on the battles of Bellatores and PVPVE Ncore arena-player.
The only ones who could compare the dimensions with the stand of Astrum were the developers of MMO Stalcraft. They arranged a zone of computers in them, where you could play a special multiplayer mode, and a shooting range where you could win some prizes, and a souvenir store and a small corner made in the surroundings of the game, against which one could take a picture. The queues, however, they had rather big ones (as well as on many popular stands), but at least it means that the demand for “our stalker at home” is available.
There was also a scene in the hall where presentations, cosplay Deephil and performances of special guests of the festival took place. I didn’t particularly look cosplay, I saw only the new Strinova and Stalcraft anime shutter (yes, many projects had a stand and presentation), and as for the guests, only Dmitry Puchkov Aka Goblin’a found.
And so the program included music groups (Nchive, T’OI, drummer Tim Ivanov), and staged battles on light swords, and Emir Kusturitsa. True, it is not very clear to me why they decided to invite him, and not someone closer to the games, but maybe they just wanted some celebrity, but in today’s situation you won’t be particularly expanded.
Well, where is at the exhibition without pony.
Most of the area of the draft section was occupied by small stands, mainly from different communities and individual authors. There you could buy different copyright crafts, drawings, and so on. Some activity and even quests there, too, seemed to be, but it so happened that running back and forth I did not find anything.
Among the activities in which I did not participate were tasks for creativity.
Merch from Astrum Entertainment
. Or, rather, the corner of the authors?
Business part
For people from the gaming industry (or those who want to join it and bought by a VIP transpanspan), RED EXPO offered lectures and round tables on various topics related to today’s Games Industry in Russia.
Welcome word from representatives of four organizers of Red EXPO: 1C, Lesta, VK Play and Astrum Entertaniment.
Just not talked about! There were practical advice: “How to draw up an agreement between the co -authors of the game and the contract with the investor?"," From idea to release: a step-by-step process of creating indie games ", and analysis of the industry as a whole:" Discussing the role of video games in the education of the younger generation in modern conditions "," The need for gamification, as one of the main tasks in the system of modern education ". There were performances of leaders of teams of various calibers, from indie to aaa.
One problem – all these events were in four halls at the same time, so even if we forget about entertainment and devote their entire time to the conference, it was physically impossible to see and hear everything. It is hoped that the organizers will publish a record, especially since they seemed to promise.
Cons and pluses
And since it was about the shortcomings, I will mention that I never looked at the stand of the BASE online platform, but all because this stand stood somewhere from the main passage. And about the “quest” at the 1C stand with the “purchase” of Suvenirov for points, I found out only on the last day. Yes, in both cases there is part of my guilt, but the lack of a normal exhibition plan and a full list of participating companies here also played a role.
It’s funny, by the way, that in general, the RED website turned out to be more informative than the Portal of the gameprom. But at the same time, for example, the game industry had a link to the SMP Racing car systems, but there is not even the name of the zone, although the zone called Simracing with car symbols has. In general, in the future, the organizers should better structure information on the site so that any person can go and quickly see who, where, what, is preferable for the link to the site or community in social networks related to the stand.
By the way, at the stands of Indi-command, it was worth writing not only the name of the team, but also the name of the game. Someone, it seems, even had? But certainly not everyone.
URN, it seems to me, was not enough. For example, having drunk the power engineer, I have been looking for a long time where you can throw out the jar. And, of course, the exhibition was not without lines that were especially long at several central stands and for an autograph session.
However, in comparison with the gamerist, the queues were not so big and moved faster. There was practically no exhibition of queues (except for the last day). And in general, the people in the halls are not so strong and crowded.
Another plus was free wi-fi. It was possible to connect as much as two channels (from RED and from crocus) and both were caught almost throughout the exhibition. Given the need for access to social networks to participate in some activities (plus a quiz at the VK Play stand was implemented through an online application), such concern for visitors was very pleased.
With hope for the best
I personally liked Red EXPO very much. And as an exhibition and as a festival. I took away a lot of positive impressions and cool loot. Yes, there were minor flaws, but even here the organizers managed to get around Grammir. And I think that many of the 45 thousand (according to statistics from the organizers) visitors also think.
So it remains to wait for the sedentary festival this year. I hope that, like the previous one, he will offer not only interesting and promising gaming projects, but also various entertainment, contests, gifts, performances of players of the gaming industry and much more. And the participants will develop successful ideas and will be able to avoid already well -known problems.
