In mid-2015 we had started the Mountwest Game Developers Association. At the time, we weren’t having many events and when we did there wasn’t much of a turn-out. Ryann and I wanted to go to an event that had more people and attendance and when we searched for near-by events, the Ohio Game Developers Expo was the closest event to us. We brought the idea of a club “field trip” to go to the event to the group and we planned to go.

At the event, we saw a lot of professionals in the industry and even brought the idea to them to have a similar event in West Virginia. After a lot of positive feedback to our inquiries, I brought the idea to our Professor at the time, Joshua Joseph. He loved it. We had a building, Ryann was a talented graphic designer and started working on logos and I had already started reaching out to potential sponsors.

We were very quickly able to set up a small event that took up two floors of the school. We featured game developers and student projects from West Virginia. Students were given free general admission and booths were given for free.

The expo grew over 4 years and inspired new generations of game developers in West Virginia. We had speakers Mike Geig, Justin McElroy, Shayna Moon, Brad Kalinoski, and Christian Allen. The event eventually grew to 2 days and had around 400 attendees.

I’ll do subsequent write-ups on the various guests and studios that have showcased their work at the expo.