Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has Comic Con International covered in San Diego July 9-12. The chipmaker continues to go the event route in partnering with established brands like it did at the PC Gamer Show outside of E3 last month. In San Diego, AMD will be connecting with consumers who are in town for Comic Con, but aren’t on the actual convention show floor.
Peter Ross, senior marketing manager at AMD
Peter Ross, senior marketing manager at AMD, said the company has had success in years past partnering with Geek & Sundry during “the Con.” This year they’ve teamed up with two much larger brands in San Diego with actor Zachary Levi’s Nerd HQ four-day celebration of games, tech and entertainment at the New Children’s Museum and Robert Kirkman’s Walker Stalker Fan Fest at PetCo Park, a two-day celebration of The Walking Dead.
AMD worked with Petrol Advertising and Electronic Arts to bring the 20 versus 20 player Star Wars Battlefront Walker Assault mode to consumers for the first time. After receiving critical acclaim at E3, fans can play the multiplayer experience on AMD-powered PCs inside Nerd HQ. Levi even added a charity element to this set-up, allowing fans to donate to his Conversations for a Cause (with all money going to Operation Smile) for a chance to play the game with him.
Ross said in addition to the PC set-ups, AMD is working with Sony to have PlayStation 4 versions of the game playable for fans at Nerd HQ as well. Sony is another major sponsor for Nerd HQ, and AMD powers the chips inside PS4.
“Nerd HQ had over 50,000 attendees last year at PetCo Park and reached an additional 5 to 10 million people online,” said Ross. “We’re anticipating a bigger audience with the New Children’s Museum location.”
Ross said AMD will be giving fans a chance to win a cool PC gaming rig. And there will also be Star Wars photo opportunities for all attendees.
AMD will also be part of the first-ever Walker Stalker Fan Fest at PetCo Park on July 10-11. Skybound is now working directly with this fan convention, which is bringing more game activations to this year’s event. Telltale Studios is doing a panel with the developers and voice actors from The Walking Dead Season 1 & 2, including Melissa Hutchison, Dave Fenoy, Gavin Hammon, Nicki Rapp, and Nicole Vigil. The Panel will be moderated by Walker Stalker’s Cindi Peterson and The Walking Dead TV actor Jason Cabassi. Afterward, there will also be a live voice-acted session of the best moments from the first two seasons of the episodic game on a big screen in the baseball stadium.
According to Dan Murray, president of Skybound Interactive, the fan fest will also feature game developers Other Ocean and Team 17. Both of these game studios will have The Walking Dead games playable. In addition, Twitch will host an entire day of programming with eight top streamers on July 11 from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. playing different games. Starbreeze is bringing The Walking Dead RV to the stadium, which will have playable versions of The Walking Dead VR video game demo that 505 Games debuted at E3 2015.
Inside of the Walker Stalker “Dead Zone,” AMD will have a VR demo featuring Oculus Rift demos of Zypre’s First and Crytek’s Robinson: The Journey. AMD will also have its Project Quantam prototype machine and a 4K demo with HP system featuring Dragon Age: Inquisition. Ross said the 6th Generation A-Series AMD processors on HP and Lenovo systems will be running Dirt Rally and Lego Batman. Starbreeze’s Payday 2 will be playable on several mobile gaming systems. And Battlefield 4 will be playable on Xbox One and Killzone: Shadow Fall on PS4.
“We’re excited to engage with the Comic Con audience,” said Ross. “They represent a real core group of hardware gaming fans and users. The whole gaming space is critical to AMD. We have great relationships with Sony and Microsoft in the console space, and we’re doing everything we can do to grow the PC gaming space.”
Over 130,000 people attended Comic Con last year. More visitors are coming into town for day trips even without tickets, just to take in the free options that stretch throughout the downtown area. AMD is just one of the companies to tap into this huge gathering of pop culture fans at one of the biggest gatherings in the United States.
