There are four brands you would expect to see at "Australia's largest video game expo" - Sony, Nintendo, Activision and Microsoft. So the obvious absence of the first three, and Microsoft's less-committed trailer made Melbourne's eGames Expo strange to say the least.

eGames started as the eGames & Entertaiment Expo in 2006 with Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft all in attendance. Being the most established industry behemoths, they are the last three you'd expect to pull participation due to the GFC - if that is indeed the case.

Ubisoft brought along Assassin's Creed II

However, walking in to the first of a three day event, this emptiness made way for punters to pay more attention to other stands, the queen of which was Ubisoft. With a good number of playable units showcasing pre-release versions of Assassin's Creed II, Splinter Cell: Conviction, and the product which for me made any drawbacks to the event worth putting up with: James Cameron's Avatar, which was being demonstrated in glorious 3D.

It's not often I get totally blown away games, but after seeing Avatar in 3D, it is now my absolute, must-have new game/technology experience. I don't care what it costs to get a 3D screen to experience the full effect of the mind-blowingly realistic depth, but I'll be pimping out my devving indexes to afford it as soon as the screens are domestically available in Australia.

Avatar will require an HDMI equipped console, the pair of 3D glasses included with the game and a compatible 3D 1080p, 120Hz TV. The booth attendant told me we'll have some in Australia next year entering the market well over the 6k mark. Ouch, but cancel summer's music festivals, because it'll be worth it. We're talking gaming orgasms here.

Avatar was the highlight of the show

According to this Games On Net interview, there is overlap between the game and the film with characters from the film appearing in the game, however Avatar brand manager Luc Duchaine emphasises that the game's objective is expand the world, and not to be a game of the movie. With assets this rich, I'm glad they've made as much use of them as possible. Their strategy to plan game and film from the start, and allow the game's developers the longest dev time possible (rather than adding it on as an afterthought) is something I'd like to become more widespread.

I could have sat in the Avatar 3D booth for all three days. Unfortunately there was only one screen and seven seats with the right viewing angle, so you'd have been very lucky to get a crack at the game. If you were there on Friday; I was the chick sitting there continuously swearing in amazement. I don't even care about the gameplay on this one, as the visual quality is just that seductive (the gameplay looked excellent, but I can't comment on it as I didn't get my hands on the controller). If you got in early, you had a chance to grab one of the complimentary beautiful, oversized posters.

Avatar will hit theatres on December 17, while the game will be available on December 3.

Another highlight for me was a chat I had with game entrepreneur Dave Storey, who in December 2004 spent a comparatively paltry $US26,000 buying Entropia Universe's first release of island territory Treasure Island (the highest price ever paid for a virtual item at the time).

Dave Story - virtual property magnate

Entropia Universe has a very attractive business model. Gamers can download the game and play online for free. Rather than charging subscription fees, users spend real world cash on assets of use in the game. And spend they do; Entropia Universe has twice entered the Guinness Book of Records for the most expensive digital asset ever sold: Club NEVERDIE, an asteroid space resort sold for $US100,000.

This model delivers royalties to land owners who tax players for using their land. Dave's Treasure Island hosts three unique characters which have spawned from the game's DNA eggs, making Treasure Island a key destination for adventure-tourists in the game. Dave is raking in an impressive $AU100,000 per year from these royalties, which is why he can afford to suit up and hire some booth bunnies to show the game off at Australian expos himself.

A couple of lesser-publicised events to note were Channel 31's Level 3 show taping attendees game reviews, the best of which were to be shown on TV. Given the ridiculous audio bleed at the venue, I'll be surprised if they got anything usable. On Sunday, local developers of the UT mod Imperial League were letting attendees enter a tournament to challenge last year's champions. Imperial League is still in development, but the latest release has already seen over a thousand downloads in its first month. Last year's tournament title holder Samual Lastrina says Imperial League "is the best game ever. It's a completely different type of genre. It's not a traditional shooter or a sports game, but a really original combination."

The expo looked like it had suffered from organisational problems with booths still empty or being set up late into Friday afternoon. One operator told me he had been informed Friday was for media only.

Bad acoustics = bad show?

There was no shortage of material for kids, although (somewhat amusingly) most of it was out of their reach when I was there – perhaps the 'Kid's Zone' wasn't fully operational yet. The complete lack of content for mobile platforms was also disappointing. The ICT Skills and Careers expo seemed like an awkward inclusion this year, while the Digital Lifestyle Expo only really served to fill space in the strangely empty hall.

Scheduling the event for the Melbourne Cup Day weekend was likely to have a negative effect on attendence as well, with many Melburnians seeking to escape the city for a relaxing long weekend. One of the criticisms of eGames in previous years was that it needed to happen a couple of weeks earlier - the same holds true for this year.

Far and away the biggest drawback this year was the venue. With so much competing audio content, the event should NEVER AGAIN be held in the noisy, echoey halls of the heritage listed Exhibition Buildings. It was damn near impossible to actually hear any of the on-stage presentations as surrounding LANs annihilated auditory perception.

This year's show was disappointing, leaving plenty of room for improvement. Here's hoping that the show's organisers can lure Activision, Nintendo and Sony back for next year's show, move it back to the superior location at Southbank, and host the show a couple of weeks earlier.

Check the next page for a gallery of photos from the event.