A Tradeshow In Summer 2020? Analyzing GTI Asia China Expo 2020

After the recent cancellation of IAAPA 2020, it was seemingly like there would be no physical trade show for our industry for the remainder of the year. Turns out that assumption was wrong, as “Game Time International” (GTI) went ahead and held their expo in Guangzhou this past week from the 9th-11th. While I did not attend (in part, I had no idea it was happening until the day it began), some others did that have provided us with a glimpse of some products that we might have seen show up at IAAPA in some form.

We have covered previous iterations of the GTI Asia Expos in the past, click here if you would like a refresher.

Highway Games has posted this look at a variety of products seen at the event, some of which we may never see over in the West, but plenty that we will since certain companies do have a presence here. Some will be shown in more detail by UNIS when they hold their virtual trade show next month; Others I imagine will find their way over here via licensing (especially on the redemption pieces). Unfortunately, the camera person doesn’t spend a lot of time showing the game screen on many of these, so several titles are only shown for a few seconds.  The video then some more commentary.

The vid starts with a look at the motion version of Cruis’n Blast, something that is not headed our way due to a licensing agreement between UNIS and Raw Thrills. There’s also a new twin-seater/single screen motion model you see there. Other highlights:

• The Chinese version of WACCA was there and looks like it was popular.
• The sports games near the beginning (soccer & basketball) are from UNIS and we’ll be detailing those soon as the company shifts focus onto exergaming.
• Jet Blaster makes an appearance at 2:04. Click here for a longer look at that one
• Does show a few “kid vending” games, simple titles that vend cards that have been popular in Japan.
• 2:26 is what looks like a sequel to Toy Frenzy
• 2:49 is a reskin of Andamiro’s Jurassic World game, instead, it uses Astro Boy. Can’t tell if it’s Andamiro’s or not.
• 3:22 has Sega’s MaiMai DX going strong, and right after that is some Initial D Zero
• 3:40 begins showing a company influenced by Sega from the late ’90s while offering some of their own stuff. I don’t know which company it is, as their logo is only in Chinese. Apart from some standard videmption fare, they have their version of Sega’s old Magical Truck Adventure called Fun On Track and a Brave Firefighters clone called The Firefighter Squad. It’s impossible to say how the games play from the footage, but the cabinets do look nice (Fighter Squad has some clever fire hydrant seats, which is a nice touch). Their drumming game Cute Cute Hit looks like it’s trying to do the Taiko No Tatsujin gameplay; Nitro Speed looks cool with the 4 player racing on one cab (probably a concept best for pre-pandemic times).
• 4:43 shows a VR rhythm game that reminds me of a title that I saw years ago at the InJoy Motion booth, but they didn’t release it outside of Asia.
• 5:19 has an unofficial cameo by IT, the freaky clown from the books/movies. The game is a VR arcade title called Demons, but they don’t show gameplay of it in action.
• 8:07 has a very nice looking music game called Piano Blocks. I like the design, including the cool infinity mirror under the seat; Overall it kind of reminds me of this piano game I saw years ago.
• 8:15 has another rhythm game that first looked like DJ Max Technika (from the cab design), but from the brief gameplay is more like MaiMai, I think.
• 9:20 has an interesting variation of UNIS’ jockey/horse racing game called Dragon Rider. They kept the giant horse controllers instead of changing them into dragons; The motion also doesn’t seem to be directly connected to the gameplay, which would throw me off. It’s too bad, as a good dragon-riding game could be fun.
• There is some virtual pinball at 9:27, unsure who made it
• There are several different generic arcade cabinets. While some of the designs are over-the-top, it sure would be nice if we had more generic cabs here in the States.
• There are plenty of video basketball machines throughout. This doesn’t surprise me in the least, as I expected to see a whole slew of clones to both Bay Tek’s Connect4Hoops and UNIS’ To The Net at some point. It just took some time for others to catch up.
• Still, plenty of VR, although some of it we’ve seen, the others were in development pre-pandemic. Hard to say if there’s anything there that will be a breakout hit.

I did do some searching around the internet for more details, but so far this video is the most we have available. As mentioned, there is a good chance that some of these games will find their way to us in the West come 2021. Is there anything shown that you find interesting?