The lowdown on Singapore’s Gaming Entertainment eSports Exhibition, GE3

Singapore gamers entrenched in the local competitive gaming scene will surely have heard the abbreviation ‘GE3’ being tossed around the past three weeks.

The Gaming Entertainment eSports Exhibition, which is what GE3 is short for, is a community convention organized by Colosseum Amusement, the company that owns the Colosseum LAN shop that many Singapore gamers know and love. The three day LAN event, which has a primary focus on eSports, will be held from December 27 to December 29, 2013, at Downtown East in Singapore.

Far from being a traditional gaming con, the GE3 is built on the community. Its organizing committee left the floor open for various local gaming communities and their leaders to come forward and lay claim to it. As a result, many of the main activities at GE3 are community-organized gaming competitions, ranging from Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh all the way to Battlefield 4.

For spectators needing competition with higher stakes, GE3 will also be featuring the Asian Cyber Games and an official eClub and Valve-sanctioned Dota 2 tournament, The Asia Championship, which will see ten teams from the region flying in to compete. If that’s not enough hype, shoutcaster fan favourites Tobi ‘Tobiwan’ Dawson and David ‘GoDz’ Parker will be helming the casting tables.

If it sounds like it’s completely about eSports to you, you’re not far off the mark. There are a total of ten communities pitching in with competitions and tournaments, some already with their event page set up on Facebook. However there will be fringe activities for the less competitively inclined. These include a cosplay competition, a hadouken photo booth, free-play stations, a gaming-themed marketplace and a series of gaming-themed activities called The Quest.

GE3’s selling point is that it’s a gaming event unlike no other, and it has certainly achieved that if you consider it from a Singaporean perspective. There has never been a gaming event so focused on the community, ever.

“Our aim is for the public to experience gaming and we wanted to see greater participation from casual gamers, like ourselves. We planned to put on a different kind of show, one we would enjoy,” said Daniel Ch’ng, founder of Colosseum, about GE3’s unique ambition.

The Gaming Entertainment eSports Exhibition will run from December 27 to December 29, 2013 at D’Marquee, Downtown East, Singapore. More information can be found on its Facebook page.

UPDATE 17-12-2013: You can now also keep up with the event’s official website.