Southeast Asia, could this be your Tokyo Game Show?

Earlier this year, we griped that Singapore no longer had any consumer gaming events. But we’re eating our words now, with the arrival of Gamestart 2014, a gaming convention taking place in Singapore that touts itself as “Southeast Asia’s premiere consumer gaming event”.

Running over the weekend of October 25 and 26, the inaugural Gamestart aims to bring the “buzz and fabulous content” of big shows like Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) and Gamescom to the region. Elicia Lee, speaking for show organizer Eliphant Pte Ltd, said that with the exponential growth of the Asian gaming market, “pretty much everyone is a gamer nowadays.” She also added:

We wanted to create a show that we would want to go to with our friends.

And it appears that Eliphant has indeed done so. Highlights of the show include:

• A huge Sony Computer Entertainment Hong Kong presence, including Playstation 4 and Playstation Vita titles on display. Games on show include demos of Driveclub, Littlebigplanet 3, and Freedom Wars.
• Exclusive t-shirt launches from geek and gamer shirt designer, Xmashed Gear.
• The Game On! cosplay competition, which will be restricted to game characters only.
• Special guest Yasemin Arslan from Vera Chimera Cosplay, best known as Gearbox Software’s official Lilith the Siren.

(See: Awesome costumes: that League of Legends pool party cosplay photo)

Other partners include Red Bull as Gamestart’s official drink, St Games Cafe, one of Singapore’s first console gaming cafe, and cosplay experts the Neo Tokyo Project. And yes, there will be free Red Bull!

What really sells the show is the fact that it isn’t planned by suits, by corporate event planners who don’t play games, by gamers who have outlived their sell-by date, or by people driven purely by their egos or by their profit margin. Gamestart is organized by industry professionals who have worked in triple-A companies, and who understand that the gaming community doesn’t want events that have flea market booths on 70 percent of their floorspace. As gamers and industry players themselves, they understand what gamers want. And I have high hopes for Gamestart because of that.

The Gamestart website is already live, and will be updated as we draw closer to the last weekend of October. Registration for the Game On! cosplay competition will open on August 8, while tickets are set to go on sale soon.

Gamestart 2014 will be held at Singapore’s Suntec Convention Centre.

Suntec Convention Centre’s potential: