The Rage Expo, now in its 17th edition, is attracting many gamers and followers of the geek culture with the latest in Esports and gaming being showcased at the Dome, in Northgate, in Johannesburg.

The expo has a new sponsor on board and Project Manager Michael James says this is the first time this has happened.

“It is a first time we have a major sponsor like Vodacom is involved and this shows how much the event is growing.”

James says they are expecting around 40 000 visitors over the three days and people should lookout for exciting features over this weekend.

One of the main attractions is the Acer Predator Thronos gaming setup. The whole system is the next level of gaming hardware for hardcore gamers.

A representative from the company says there are less than ten of these machines in the country and it will set you back a cool R300 000 for the base model of the system.

The machine powering this gaming setup comes standard with 64 GB or ram and features two graphic cards each pushing 12 GB each. The display is made up of three  2560 x 1440 video monitors.

Another big attraction is the World Robotics Olympiad South Africa, where people of different age groups will participate. Children as young as six can take part in the contest where they can build robots using Lego blocks.

James says this is exciting for their young visitors as this is an opportunity for them to get a great experience of the event.

Showcasing local game developers

There are also a number of local game developers showcasing their games at the expo.

Dewald Bodenstein, lead developer at Quasistellar Game Development says this is a great opportunity to showcase their game. The game, Rectifying Zion is a Role-Playing Game( RPG) in its alpha stage of development and he says they have put in R300 000 to date on the project and are looking for a cash injection of about R1 million to take it to final stage of development.

Another developer, Morne Leander has developed a mobile game where the user gets to fly a paper plane through obstacles. Leander says they have received rave reviews and the game is currently rated at four and a half stars on the App store.

An android version of the game is in the works.

Many other activities will be taking place at the expo with Orlando Pirates players and hip hop star Nasty C expected to interact with the visitors on Saturday and Sunday respectively.

The Rage expo runs until Sunday.

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