Nearly $300,000 in Scholarships Given Out at Largest Retro Gaming Fair in the Carolinas

GREENVILLE, SC (WSPA) – Thousands of people gathered in Greenville for the largest gaming convention in South Carolina.

This past weekend, the Greenville Convention Center transformed into 125,000 square feet of gaming activity. It’s all part of the 8th annual Southeast Game Exchange Expo.

“We’re the largest and longest running gaming expo in South Carolina and one of the largest in the entire Southeast region,” said Austin Bell, Southeast Game Exchange. “It’s kind of like Comic-Con, but it’s all gaming related. So, we even have live wrestling, but it’s got a little twist, we call it ‘Smash Brothers in real life,’ so all of our wrestlers are dressed as Mario, Luigi, Picacho…”

The event included a sales hall, e-sports and various retro games.

“My favorite thing I saw was ‘Halo Mega Blocks,’ I had those growing up and I haven’t seen them since,” said Christopher Stewart.

Expo visitor John Romeo said the event also brought back memories from his childhood,

“I like a lot of new games, but the ones I grew up with were Pacman and Asteroids. It’s pretty exciting to see all those games for our childhood nostalgia,” Romeo explained. “We’re going back to see what our childhood was like and now we can relive those experiences.”

Some gamers at the expo weren’t just playing for fun: the tournament winners received a total of $290,000 in scholarships from Barton and Louisburg College.

“We have partnered with Carolina Game Summit, which works with a number of different universities. All the winners of the different tournaments will receive a number of scholarships from those two universities,” Bell said.

According to the organizers, it is a way to enable a future career for people with a passion for games.

“A lot of kids who are into esports and things like that are going into the tech industry and this gives them an easier path into that,” Bell added. “Especially for our younger generation, being able to provide scholarships for gamers so they can use their passion and hobby to go to school is really important.”

Bell said they estimate about 6,000 people attended the expo this year.