Despite many, including the organizers, anticipating a smaller turnout for this year’s rAge event, the expo saw more people through its doors than ever before.
While international trends indicate a general decrease in expo attendance of around 30%, rAge managed to grow by 6% in 2009, with a record breaking 19,488 visitors attending.
Michael James, show director of rAge had this to say “The fact that we had an extremely successful show supports our initial indications that South Africa’s technology and gaming industry is proving to be recession-resilient. The equipment and gear featured at this year’s show sold like hotcakes and are by no means low-cost ticket items. It shows the growing maturity of the gaming industry in SA and the disposable income of South African gamers,”
Not only did the event see the most visitors ever, but it has also been recognised for holding the biggest LAN ever in South Africa, with a total of 2,162 gamers participating over the weekend.
While the global economic crisis has been blamed for poor attendance levels at similar international events, it would seem as though South African gamers are more resilient.
“We were very aware of the economic environment in which we find ourselves this year and maintained conservative expectations of even equalling last year’s visitor figures. We are thrilled to have grown our figures by 6% from last year with a total of 19,488 visitors this year. The expo’s consistent year-on-year growth is also attributed to the phenomenal support it enjoys from our exhibitors who invest enormously in marketing their participation to their clients. 1,822 NAG LAN tickets sold out in a record two days and was an exceptionally successful event, also boasting its highest number of gamers to date. When you add the 340 Telkom Do Gaming VIP players, there was a record total of 2,162 players in the LAN this year, making it one of Africa’s largest LAN’s,” said James.
The expo saw a wide variety of unreleased games being demonstrated, including Uncharted 2, Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed 2, Avatar and loads more. It also hosted the official launch of the PS3 Slim in SA, as well as the PSP Go!, AMD’s HD 5800 series, Fifa 10 and MSI and Alienware gaming laptops.
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