The Greater Philadelphia area will have no shortage of video games this summer. The TooManyGames convention, which began 20 years ago, is back and bigger than ever.
The show will return to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks from June 28-30 and will feature a massive marketplace, esports tournaments and special guests including influencers and voice actors.
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Vendors will sell video games and consoles from old Atari to modern PlayStation 5.
"We have become one of the biggest, and what I’m told the best, retro gaming marketplaces in the country," said Heather Truitt, one of the co-owners and founders of TooManyGames.
If you're not in the market for buying retro games, you can go to the Free Play Game area to play titles from a range of consoles.
More competitive players can compete in video game tournaments at an esports or casual level. This year's esports tournament games are "Street Fighter 6," "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" and the recently released "Tekken 8." The more casual players can expect to play "Mario Tennis" and "Mario Kart."
New to the expo in 2024 is the Classic Tetris Philadelphia Regional Championship, which will have a minimum prize pool of $500 and a chance to compete in the Classic Tetris World Championship. The tournament organizers will also hold a "Dr. Mario" tournament with a prize of $100.
The expo won't just be limited to video games — board games, collectible card games and even escape rooms will be present.
"We want to create an inclusive environment," Truitt said. "It’s an all-encompassing game convention instead of just a video game convention."
Showcases for independently developed tabletop and video games will highlight works from local companies like Retroware, which runs arcades in addition to developing retro-inspired indie games.
Traditional fandom expo features like a cosplay contest, an art market and numerous special guests are also a part of TooManyGames 2024. The art market in particular should be crowded; Truitt says that there are at least 200 vendors on the waitlist.
Prolific voice actors attending the expo include award-winning actor Neil Newbon, who voices the fan-favorite character Astarion in "Baldur's Gate 3;" Colleen O’Shaughnessey, who voices Miles "Tails" Prower in the "Sonic the Hedgehog" games and films; and several "Resident Evil" voice actors, including Nick Apostolides, who voiced Leon Kennedy in last year's "Resident Evil 4" remake.
TooManyGames is hoping to continue its growth from the past decade.
"The culture has changed so much in the past 10 years," Truitt said. "Anime and video game conventions were a world that people didn’t go into. They were a little bit more underground. Fast forward, you can walk into Target and buy anime, manga, all that stuff."
Another opportunity is the fact that E3, which was once the largest video game convention in the world, has permanently ended. Truitt hopes to get one of the "big game companies" to come to the expo as an exhibitor, though she did not specify which ones.
While TooManyGames doesn't have the attendance of other expos like PAX or Gamescom, its attendance has increased every year, with a reported 20,634 people in 2023. The expo has taken over the entire Greater Philadelphia Expo Center since 2022.
Founded as the East Coast Gaming Expo in 2004, the show rebranded to TooManyGames in 2007. Truitt, who was a vendor with her husband Paul from 2004 to 2006, took over planning, with Ryan and Virginia Schott joining in 2015. According to Truitt, an evaluation by the Valley Forge Tourism Board found that the expo had an economic impact of over $1 million for the county in 2019.
Truitt says that the expo has always been trying a "localized approach," but now, "people come from all over the world."