With GO3 done and dusted, it's time for reflection. Was it a success? Was it worth the trip for people outside of Perth? Did it show that Australia was a viable location for a major-ish regional games show? All these questions, and more, are answered by me and my keen sense of hindsight after the jump.

(but here's a hint: NO)

GO3 was a failure. Just laying that out there on the table before we go any further. It was poorly organised, poorly conceived, poorly located and failed to deliver on nearly all of its promise as a major Australian gaming expo. Allow me to elaborate:

You just can't hold a major Australian event like this in Perth. Sorry Perth. The Australian gaming industry, and gaming press, are located on the opposite side of the country. As is the vast majority of the Australian public. Which is 5 hours and about AUD$600 return away.
Many press outlets simply couldn't afford to send people to cover the event, the number of public attendees (ie paying customers) was only a fraction of what a similar show in Sydney or Melbourne would attract (again, due to the cost and distance) and, most damning of all, it was a barrier to exhibitors. Neither Sony (Sydney) or Nintendo (Melbourne) sent a single representative. Considering we're only 2 weeks off the PS3's launch, that says a lot.
For months, the GO3 site displayed the logo of both Nintendo and the Wii on its front page. When I contacted Nintendo Australia about this, they had no knowledge of the event, and confirmed they were not sending anybody. Turns out that Game Traders, a local games store, was going to have a single Wii set up. And that somehow qualified as advetising a Nintendo presence. Egads.
The conference aspect of the show lacked purpose. Speakers had no idea whether they were addressing students, the press, gamers or industry professionals, so what we ended up with was a whole batch of "middle of the road" talks, with most (especially the Japanese developers) opting to just tell their life story instead of dealing with a particular topic or revealing anything of their projects. Suda, for example, had no clue what the show was actually about until he got off the plane.
The showroom floor was embarrassing. It was 4x as big as it needed to be, which meant that even at its busiest, the floor looked desolate. The bulk of it was taken up by minor educational institutions, small IT/hardware businesses and even attendees that had no relation to gaming whatsoever (a jetboat tour company, for example). What little games were on offer were already available at retail, and the promised appearances of BioShock, The Darkness and Stranglehold were confined to over-stretched SD trailers looped on a screen tucked behind a curtain.
Microsoft were the only platform holder to be present, and were probably the busiest stall on the floor, with a "jumping castle" booth housing multiple Crackdown & Gears demo pods. What was located directly opposite them? A stall for a mod chip seller, proudly advertising that his chips could allow backed-up games to be played on 360s. Very professional.
The attendance of local developers was really disappointing. Aside from John Passfield, Pandemic didn't show, the Creative Assembly guys weren't there, nor were IR Gurus (Heatseeker), Irrational Canberra weren't there and Auran, while having some guys present, didn't have their own stall, instead piggy-backing on Altech's hardware booth.
Remember I said I'd heard a rumour about Kojima running a new MGS4 trailer? And we got nothin'? Word was that he did have a new trailer, saw the size & quality of the show, saw it was nothing like the brochure and decided to hang onto it for a better time/place. That's the only reason GameTrailers made the trip.
If this was just a little Perth show, it would have been fine. But it wasn't. Kojima, Suda and Mizuguchi were here, and their presence was largely wasted. Famitsu, MTV and Gametrailers turned up to cover it, and got nothing. Big games were advertised as being in attendance, and just weren't.

Now, I'm not saying it was a complete waste of time for everyone. A handful of the conference talks (Rod Fergusson's, Matsuura's and John Passfield's) were great, and the massive LAN battle section looked like good times for all involved. The GO3 team working behind the scenes to keep the show running also did a top-shelf job. But these were blessed, isolated cases.

Everyone there knew Australia can hold a big(gish) games show. It's why we there in the first place. But GO3 just aren't the guys to do it, and sadly Perth (despite being a gorgeous city) just isn't the place. Luke Plunkett