The GameTap booth is not one of those huge monstrosities that had to be trucked in on a fleet of 18-wheel semis, but it is a good example of a booth done fairly well on a limited budget. Plentiful kiosks, coherent branding, and a decent sound system fed tunes by a live DJ cum booth babe. The booth's low points -- trite "industrial" exposed steel, cheap plastic game controllers instead of classic arcade joysticks, conventional design -- were somewhat overcome by the quality of the real product on display. Simply put: GameTap's 500-plus-title library is impressive, and we shouldn't let a little boring booth design undermine our evaluation of the product. We know this, and yet sometimes it's hard to remember to keep the booths and the products separate!
Continue for more photos.
The first game I fired up, of course. There were actually many varieties of the Street Fighter II franchise available for play. I chose the first.
The kiosks, before the unwashed masses are granted access to the hall.
The DJ. She's having a hard time appearing enthusiastic at 9.30 in the morning as she presides over an empty booth (prior to general admission).
SoR? Aww yeah!
Looking up, we see the GameTap logo floating above us. It resembles a blimp in the shape of the father, the son, and the holy ghost. Or Nintendo, Sony and Sega. Or Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. Or GDC, E3, and PAX. Well, three is a magical number no matter what it signifies. So too, the GameTap logo.
[update 1: fixed a couple typos.]
