Showdown GAME and Eurogamer

GAME wants to trump Eurogamer’s popular Expo by encouraging publishers to debut new games at its own Birmingham show first.

GameFest will run for five days in September, the firm has told MCV. The first two days will feature its trade-only managers’ conference.

GAME announced the show last week: it’ll run from September 14th to 18th. It takes place a year after the Group debuted a similar event in Spain – that show (pictured) drew in over 40,000 visitors. The new UK show will be an annual event.

The retailer says it will tap into a Reward Card customer base of 2.8m to draw thousands to GameFest – even though the event takes place just days before Eurogamer Expo.

It is hoped that publishers will use the event to debut new titles to the chain’s broad audience.

We like being first. We’re first when it comes to showing store managers, and we think we can be first for customers,” said Neil Ashurst, GAME’s head of UK communications. We have an audience that includes more casual players. So it’s not just core gamers.”