The second annual XPO Game Festival took place in downtown Tulsa, October 13-15.
Here’s our XPO “photo album” so far:
Indie developers, publishers, streamers, podcasters, cosplayers, performers, professional gamers, and more gathered to celebrate the best in gaming culture and development over three days filled with activities and industry panels.
The event brought notable professionals, including: live music by Bit Brigade, Heatbox, Metroyd Myk, and The Returners; a number of educational panels with speakers from What’s Good Games and Game Attack; and high-intensity eSports tournaments presented by Osage Casino.
The show floor at the Cox Business Center was packed with a variety of exhibitors ranging from retro and tabletop games to indies, VR – and even laser tag! With so many great titles available to demo, it was tight competition for this year’s Audience Choice Award – which was given to the team at OverHook Games for their origami-inspired, meditative mobile puzzle game Zenfold.
Throughout the festival, eSport teams faced off in popular titles such as Overwatch, Hearthstone, Rocket League, Halo 5, Super Smash Bros. 4, and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. The League of Legends tournament boasted a $10,000 prize pool distributed among the winning teams. Taking to the battlefield, Warriors landed in third place – with Solo Queue taking second place, and the Kansas Wesleyan University team emerging victorious as the first place winners. The Wichita State University team, Overshocks, placed first in the Overwatch tournament. For Rocket League, Future took first place, and High Octane took second place. Sebastian Pineda won the Hearthstone tournament, and Damon Morris won Halo 5. All PC tournaments were managed by Oklahoma eSports.
This year’s cosplay contest was another XPO highlight. Hosted by Mythos Creations, attendees could strut their cosplay creations across the festival’s main stage. The contest included some popular cosplay characters such as Ghost from Call of Duty: Ghosts, Charizard from Pokémon, and an NCR Ranger from Fallout: New Vegas.
Cosplay Contest Winners:
* 1st Place: Dustin Skinner (a.k.a. Dustin Digitaria) as Ganondorf Dragmire from The Legend of Zelda series
* 2nd Place: Sarah Lee (a.k.a. Azure Dahlia) as Gunner Yuna from Final Fantasy X-2 (2nd Place)
* 3rd Place: Brianna Duncan (a.k.a. Bree Lime Pie) as DC Comics’ Harley Quinn
XPO Game Festival has been featured in a number of outlets – including Tulsa World, Everfest, LegionBattles, Fangirl Nation, Events for Gamers and MineCraft Game World.
Read more about XPO Game Festival here.