Event: Buy.com - LAN Party/ Trade Show Event Date: 04/02/2007 Written By: Warhawk Date Written: 0?/??/2007

March 30 – April 2nd 2007 marked the dates of the first ever Buy.com LAN which took place in Southern California. That it took place during April fools day would end up being a telling testament to the type of event it turned out to be. 

I only attended because I was sent there by Antec. Antec had a partnership with local fremont based memory company Patriot; and together we split the cost of a sponsor booth at this event. 

Buy.com was an online retailer specializing in PC hardware and various other tech equipment. The fact that they were now getting into the corporate LAN hosting scene was an indication to the wide reaching popularity of such events at the time. Like many other companies that were hosting similar events; Buy.com saw this as a valuable opportunity to market directly to one of their main target markets - hardcore gamers. Even better, they could defer most (if not all) of the costs by providing sponsor companies (such as Antec and Patriot) the opportunity to pay to have a booth at the event; where they too could directly market to this valuable “gamer” market segment. 

On paper, such an arrangement sounds like a slam dunk; however, hosting a LAN event that was a fun and positive experience for the gamer required a dedicated LAN production team, with attention to many details. Sometimes these types events were pulled off flawlessly, such as in the case of the first couple of Showdown LAN events, which were sponsored by PC Gamer/ Maximum PC magazines and were produced by the PDX LAN production crew. Other events of this type lacked focus, and felt more like shameless self promotion while the actual LAN part of the event is half-assed or practically ignored. The Buy.com LAN event would unfortunately fall into the latter category. 

The expo area of the LAN was pretty nice and professionally done. There was a large stage for presentations and contests, fancy lighting, and a huge projection screen on the back wall that showed tournaments and things like that. They had professional MCs to keep people entertained and excited throughout the event, and lots of camera crews walking around capturing everything that happened. There were a number of tradeshow style booths sponsored by many high tech companies including: Antec, Nvidia, Intel, Corsair, Ageia, BFG, XFX, Evga, VisionTek, Thermaltake, Patriot, PNY, etc.  

There was also a large xbox tournament area, and an Intel area that appeared to be for Counter Strike competitions.  There were cash prizes offered for the various tournaments and a number of teams traveled from all over to compete at the event.  This was my first indication that this was not going to be the typical LAN atmosphere I had come to know and love. 

I looked around and did not see any actual LANing going on at all. Eventually I found signs pointing to the Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) area of the event. I finally found the BYOC area down a very small hallway on the opposite side of the hotel that was hosting the event. 

When I walked in, it was as if the BYOC was a completely separate event. It shared none of the high quality production values of the expo area. There were rows of long tables lined up, with a very sparse population of gamers. There was very little, if any, actual LANing going on.

Most that were there appeared to be the professional Counter Strike teams, and were just using the room to practice and prepare for the tournament. There was no party atmosphere, no music, no fancy lighting, just silence and harsh fluorescent ceiling lights that were turned on full blast. 

On one end of this area there were several xbox consoles setup where the console tournament teams were practicing. One such team was the all girl clan known as Pandora’s Mighty Soldiers, also known as the PMS Clan for short (see what they did there?).  They had a very large showing at the event, and the girls could be easily identified by their distinctive team shirts. Our booth partners at Patriot were sponsoring the PMS Clan, and this would be one of the first times I had met most of them, and my first impression was generally positive. 

One of their main games at the time was Gears of War, and not being a console gamer at the time it was my first time seeing it. A few of the PMS girls were nice enough to invite me to check out the game and play with them a while, which I did; but it was still not the same experience as PC LANing.

One night I went out with the patriot guys to a club that was next door. The PMS girls were there, and I talked with many of them for a while including Athena Twin (their leader). I asked her a lot about how she runs PMS in an effort to get some ideas I could apply to TMC. She told me all about their clan rules and how disciplined they are; at one point she said she’s lost friends because they couldn’t follow the rules. So needless to say, they take their gaming and their clan seriously, which I respect. Their dedication to their Clan has seemingly paid off for them too. At one point Athena Twin explained to me that they had just signed a partnership deal with a major ISP. She was cagey on the details, but seemed to indicate the deal was worth somewhere around 100k (from what I remember). 

Hearing this caused me to imagine TMC someday reaching such heights. Unfortunately, despite  my best efforts, doing so would require a level of dedication and teamwork we never were quite able to achieve. Additionally, I was personally not yet prepared to be as tough on our members as would be required to bring about such dedication. The willingness to lose friends over enforcing Clan rules and policies had not yet developed in me. 

After a while, I heard one of the girls say “Hey Jonathan!” I turned and looked, and there was Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, the famous pro-gamer.  Apparently he already knew all the girls, and he came over to us and introduced the girl that he had brought in with him.  He seemed pretty proud of her as he told us her rank in Unreal Tournament and how good she was at games. 

I talked to Fatality a while and found out he’s big into playing all kinds of sports, and apparently his life revolves around competition of all kinds. This explains how he has gotten to where he is in gaming.   I also found out he lives in Texas with a roommate, which seemed odd given the millions that he makes off of gaming and endorsements.  He told me that he's trying to be smart with his money and save as much as he can. I nodded and told him that was probably a good idea, given all the basketball players and sports guys that sign contracts and then immediately go on a spending spree and buy Ferraris and whatnot, only to be bankrupt by the time they retire. His response was “well… I’m still going to buy a Ferrari".  I guess I can’t blame him for that.

After the club closed down at about 2am, we all stumbled up to the PMS girl’s room. This resulted in many loud, roudy drunken shenanigans that got security knocking on our door, and the classic “SHHHH!!! Security is here! Ok, everybody be cool! I’m going to answer the door…” routine. Of course security didn’t buy any of that, and we all got kicked out.  

While I wouldn’t call the event a true LAN party, it was an interesting glimpse into the whole scene of competitive gaming.

Pictures from buy dot com forum, I think: