GLGX 2021 Postmortem

01 Mar 2021

One Crazy Year

Rolling into March 2021, it is hard to believe that we have been at this pandemic thing for a whole year. And it has been a year without any of the in person, live conventions we know and love. So many missed opportunities to show off the progress we have made, to network with our peers and to enjoy this community as a whole.

We, the organizers of GLGX, tried our best to capture the feeling of a well run expo. We tried to provide those opportunities through a small, online event. Even though we stumbled in the beginning, we all feel that Great Lakes Game Expo was a success worthy of repeating. To celebrate that, let us take a look back at the event and then forward to the future.

In Your Own Backyard

The scope and goal of the expo was to highlight the games, in a variety of forms, that are being worked on around the Great Lakes. Whether that was in our home state of Michigan, within our eternal rival Ohio or even across the border in Canada. We were pleasantly surprised to see the turnout from Fort Wayne, Indiana as well! And I am certain the audience for the Twitch streams came from even more locations both near and far. Judging by the reach of the Facebook ad we ran, the GLGX logo was seen from coast to coast.

The website also had close to 500 unique visitors.

Next year we hope to keep the breadth of our scope the same but get more people on board to share their games, experiences, knowledge and passions. We know there are even more great games out there and we hope to provide a spotlight for them and their creators. So please, encourage your peers to reach out and connect with us next year.

About That Spotlight…

As a quick aside, please reach out to us whenever you reach a milestone with your games and projects. We are more than happy to shout you out on Twitter, feature your game in a Twitch stream or find new ways to give you and your work a boost.

Variety: The Spice of Life

One thing that surprised me as an individual organizer was the variety of experience represented in the expo. From people who had worked at Riot Games and Electronic Arts, to hobbyists working nights and weekends and even those presenting their student projects. It is my opinion, for this expo to continue to be a success going forward, that we need to continue to include this mixture of experiences. I feel that there are plenty of conferences that focus on just games big enough to be featured or that can afford the booth space or classes offered at the event. GLGX should, in my mind, strive to be an event that connects developers and creators from all walks of life. We did a good job of that this year, but we would love to include even more.

What Happens Now?

As organizers, we are planning what to do next year. The turnout for this, our first year, was more than we expected and our desire is to knock it out of the park next year. We are looking into more options for running the event and making it more exciting and engaging for all while keeping it accessible.

Most of the talks from this year will be featured on our YouTube. Feel free to share them and get more people interested in participating in GLGX.

Thank You

Most importantly, thank you. Thank you for helping us put together the event. Thank you for submitting your games, talks and demos. Thank you for tuning in and chatting with us. Thank you for being a part of this community and for allowing us to have a little fun in putting together an expo focused on it.