I went to have a look at the "Game On" exhibition at the State Library today.
The exhibition is running from now until February some time. It costs $18 for adults and I think about $12 for kids and students and concessions etc.

Overall I thought it was a little disappointing. Initially, I had hoped to see a bit of video game history, some displays on the machinery, and so on. The $18 entry fee was more like a flat fee to play a bunch of games on various consoles and arcade machines; kind of like a living MAME museum rather than a "history of electronic games" exhibition.

I had read that there would be "playable" games there, I just didn't expect that to be the majority of the content. I would have liked to have seen things like some consoles pulled apart with "how it works" type displays, a more in-depth look at the history of gaming, maybe a step by step look at how a game is produced, a look inside the Nintendo factory and so on. Instead there was a few animation cells on games like Dragon's Lair, a post it note story board of GTA 3(?), a few Pokemon sketches and some Communist era arcade machine that was interesting in it's bland lack of design and utilitarian appearance I suppose. Other than that it was just a bunch of consoles and a few PC games with brief explanatory notes that largely consisted of how to play.

I saw that there have been some events put on as part of the exhibition where presumably nerds of a feather get together and button bash, but really there wasn't great value for money apart from a few trips down memory lane that were probably best served by an emulator in the comfort of my own home.

Great I spose if you need to drop some pesky kids off for an hour or two and probably cheaper than the arcade, but at the end of the day I feel like I could've rented a copy of The King of Kong, learned way more and still had change for a six pack.

To summarise:

Bad Points - A PC running DOOM...with no mouse
- Kids who probably just came from playing Halo 3 on XBox 360 at home hogging up the XBox 360 4 player LAN machines
- Not really aimed at those wanting to learn something
- Only one Nintendo Game and Watch
- No real life Lara Croft model handing out free copies of...anything
- over priced for what it was

Good Points - Not too busy (at least earlier on)
- Reasonable selection of old arcade machines (although some were doubled up)
- Seemed to be a good cross section of people; old, young, men, women, nerds, jocks...ok so there weren't that many jocks...ok none.
- I didn't suck at some of the games

Anyone else go? What did you think?

Been thinking of going, I would like to see some of the stuff you mentioned. So I might end up disappointed :(

I went to it while it was down in melb, and thought it was great.

Showed some of the first games made upto the latest ones available now, and some of the games that you would never have heard of..

i got some holidays coming up, im going then;

I thought it was pretty cool. They didnt have mk 1 or 2 though.

they have it open on a few friday nights, with a cash bar. combining my two favourite vices - drinking and games. so i'll be going then.

A person from work went over the weekend and said it was awesome and everyone should go.

It wasn't bad exactly, just not really what I expected for $18. The layout didn't seem to follow any logical order and given that it was billed as an exhibition that:

tracks the development of videogames from the earliest computer games to arcade-era hits and the very latest from today’s billion-dollar industry. With more than 100 playable games, as well as rarely seen consoles, controllers and collectables, this is a showcase of games history like no other.

I thought it was a little lacking on the history side of things. Sure, there were a few panels of text up on the wall that I am sure about 1% of people bothered to read, but other than that I was after a bit more than "oh let's play all these games that are old and stuff". After watching the little trailer on the State Library website just now, it does say "play your way through history of blah", but it would make sense to have some sort of educational element.

I am sure kids would love it. I on the other hand, left feeling a bit meh.

hmm, i think i still might go.
also, d0mino is alive. cool.

If anyone is interested in going to one of the Game On Nights, the team I work with are launching CipherCities (a project we've been working) and are hosting the games industry panel at this Friday's Game On Night. Created a thread for it. http://qgl.ausforums.com/index.php/439207/?agn=thread&id=2684620