GameCon 8 in February

The 36-hour “gaming extravaganza”, GameCon 8, will be held at the Castleknock Hotel & Country Club, Porterstown Road, Dublin 15, near the M50. The multiplayer gaming event will run from 9pm February 24, to 9am on February 26.

Entry is 40 euro, or 30 euro by pre-booking online by credit card or sending a check or postal order to the organizers. According to the LAN’s website, there are currently 104 people registered, including 22 pre-paid. 

“We use GameCon to analyse the market, otherwise gamers are very hard to find... We run show reels and conduct questionnaires to get feedback on particular games” Jermain (Jazz) Williams told the Sunday Business Post back in 2002, adding “For example, we have been involved in providing feedback on the Fifa Game, which is Ireland's number one game, and Burnout 3, an Xbox game. Microsoft added a special feature enabling gamers to create their own soundtrack, thanks to feedback from our gamers”.

Sponsors of Gamecon include Sony (PlayStation), Microsoft (Xbox), Nokia (N-Gage), Electronic Arts, Activision, Take Two (owner of Rockstar), Creative Labs, Alienware, GameStop, and retailers G3. The now defunct games publisher Digtal Jesters still appears on the event’s website. While Xtra-vision is no longer listed as a sponsor - it is said that the company is scaling back games operations (apprently  including closing the specialist Xtra-Game stores, meanwhile the retailer and renter is currently running clearout sale across film, music and games, with the latter selling as low as 9.99 euro).   .

Registration is open at http://gamecon.ie/; our article on GameCon 7 is here.