Our team has hit the floors at McCormick Place for C2E2 in March, April, May and December for over a decade now, bringing you a brand new choose your own adventure preview and daily tales from the guests, cosplayers and panels every day of the con to boot. We’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly, but one thing never changes: C2E2 is Chicago’s con.
From The Yard to Jackbox, Second City, Annoyance, Robinson’s, Connie’s and more, this is what you get when you build the convention around the city instead of celebrity guests and merch, and as we’ve done in years past, we love highlighting the individual businesses, clubs and communities who make C2E2 more than a “pop culture convention” and really bring it home.
Kevin Fair of I Play Games! is one of the people who has literally changed the face of C2E2 for the better. When the video game industry represents more income than the music and tv/movie industries combined and you get a Razer trailer, a few esports booths and three consoles plugged in, it’s a real disappointment, and we’ve seen this many many times in the convention spaces we’ve been in.
I Play Games! comes at it knowing that video games are for everyone, and that it’s about community, friendly competition and safe spaces, and he’s grown his empire by building community, giving back to that community, and generally being really, really good at creating fantastic, fun gaming spaces at conventions far and wide.
What started back in 2009 locally has since become a powerhouse name in the video game world, and it’s taken Fair and I Play Games! from local meetups at haunts like the Logan or Emporium, all the way to sponsored tourneys with companies like Trolli to Keynote Operator for Dell Technologies Virtual Esports Conference and beyond, without ever forgetting where he came from and giving back to local schools, charities, and more.
But, let’s let him tell us more about I Play Games! and his time at C2E2:
KEVIN FAIR: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Thank you guys for being here.
3CR: You are obviously the founder of I Play Games!, where you create these spaces for kids to play lots of different games, including tournaments and whatnot. Is that a fair assessment?
KF: Yeah, you know, I like to say that I Play Games! was in my brain, but a group of us really helped found it together, you know, kind of through the fun of all of it. And then, yeah, we come up with these really cool experiences for people to have.
And right now it’s very loud because you have these tournaments going all day at C2E2, right? The tournament’s happening pretty much. right after people walk onto the showroom floor. And then we make an opportunity for people to cheer on their friends on our big screen.
It’s all free to, like, join and, like, get in the tournament and have some fun. Once you get your ticket to C2E2, you’re in. You can register for every tournament. I won’t say you’re in them all, but you can register for any tournament.
3CR: You do this around the Chicagoland area as well, right?
KF: No, that’s the beautiful thing about I Play Games! I mean, we’re running local tournaments pretty frequently, but then we also do a lot of things that are just for fun. Like I’ll give you a BTS (Behind the Scenes). We’re actually doing a movie premiere weekend for the Super Mario Galaxy movie. And so we are going to be at the Logan Theater. We’re going to actually have their lounge available to us so that we can play the new Super Mario Wonder DLC. So, I mean, we really try to think of these really cool ways where video games bring everybody together.
3CR: And you’ve got community centers and you establish these clubs at schools.
KF: Bingo. So we’re in over a dozen high schools that we’ve established esports teams. We make opportunities for them to have tournaments. Sometimes they’re here at C2E2 and on top of that, we worked with our public library, Boys and Girls Club, our Park District. You were in the tournament at our Park District, funny enough. You know, you guys, you got an A for effort in the tournament.
3CR: No, we didn’t. We got an F for actual.
KF: I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that. But, no, yeah, it’s been a lot of fun.
3CR: It’s really good because, if you’re creating these spaces for kids, you’re giving them someplace to go, after-school. It’s a really good environment.
KF: So what’s really fun about the way that we create those things is I think that anytime you have a good well-meaning adult that enjoys the activity, you really get to make a kind of… of quality time that boasts, but that also has some social and emotional learning capabilities. Because guess what? A lot of them just talk to me about how their day was, more like what they experienced. Experience with a teacher or, if they’re high schoolers, they’re thinking about boys and girls and all of those types of things. As a person that gets to be positioned as a mentor, they have fun, play video games, and also, we get to have some real impact in their life. So attendance goes up when we’re at school on days that eSports is in. I love that. That’s good.
3CR: Awesome. Well, thank you for your time. Thank you so much for coming out.
To find out more about what I Play Games is up to, go to their website or check out their social media page.