The TORG Gaming Expo is leveling up for its eighth year, which promises to be bigger than ever.
TORG — formally known as The Ohio Retro Gamer — has grown to the point where it is now referred to as “the biggest gaming expo in Ohio,” according to its website. On Saturday and Sunday, TORG will host a convention catering to gamers’ every need, the expo’s co-owner and operator Rachel Oscherwitz said.
“It’s two days of everything video games, from buying, selling, playing, developing, everything,” Oscherwitz said. “Anything and everything you could ever think of and relate to with video games, it’ll be there.”
Oscherwitz said the organization itself has humble beginnings, having started out roughly 13 years ago as a small Facebook group devoted to buying, selling and trading old-school video games and consoles.
“I was one of the first members and there [were] like 40 of us, and that was a big deal,” Oscherwitz said. “And then a few years after we did the group, a couple people wanted to meet up and were like, ‘Oh, this might be fun.’”
The event has been exponentially increasing its attendance numbers since its first go-around in 2015, Oscherwitz said.
“It just kind of evolved from there, from a group of 40 people that met up one year, and then a bunch of people heard about it,” Oscherwitz said. “So the next year it was 200 people. Next year, we actually rented a space and it was 500 people.”
Because of this continuous growth, Oscherwitz said TORG has been extended from a daylong affair to two full days of events for the first time ever.
“This is our year where we are absolutely, totally different because this is our first year going two days,” Oscherwitz said. “Everyone wanted a two-day event, so we thought ‘OK, we could probably do that.’”
Another new feature of this year’s expo is Saturday’s After-Party, an event with distinct activities for gamers, including drinks and free arcade games. It will also feature live music, a “Rock Band” battle of the bands game, a cosplay wrestling event put on by Extreme Fight World and a real-life Mario Party game, Oscherwitz said.
Another big change to this year’s expo is the addition of a panel, which is set to boast legendary voice actors from the Mario franchise, Oscherwitz said. The guests featured are Charles Martinet (Mario), Samantha Kelly (Princess Peach), Laura Faye Smith (Rosalina) and Kenny James (Bowser).
“It’s been our goal for a very long time,” Oscherwitz said. “Four or five years ago, we were kidding around talking about, ‘Oh God, we’ll never have Charles Martinet. When we get Charles, we can say we made it.’”
Braden Ost, a fourth-year in chemical engineering and current president of the Buckeye Gaming Collective — also known as BGC — said the Mario franchise is an iconic cornerstone of the gaming community. He said its characters have the power to bridge generational gaps and that some of his first gaming memories involve playing “Mario Kart: Double Dash” on his GameCube.
“I think pretty much everyone grew up in some capacity with [Mario] in their lives, and so as all these new games come out and new characters and all that, the whole game’s genre has kind of stayed the same,” Ost said. “I think that’s helped a lot because even as people grow and change, the games [bring] them together still.”
Oscherwitz said a notable focus for TORG is the community aspect, which has followed the group since its early days on Facebook. This sense of belonging is what drove Ost to video games from a young age.
“It was a big thing for me in grade school, being able to talk to a bunch of my friends at school and then have that connection,” Ost said. “Playing games with them was still quick and easy and something that we all really enjoyed and had a great time with.”
Ost said gaming remains an important presence in his life, as the community has provided him with many important friendships throughout his college experience.
“I actually met some of my closest friends now at Ohio State through classes and then actually being in BGC with them,” Ost said.
As students are adjusting to a post-COVID-19 world, Ost said the BGC is aiming to expand the amount of social events it offers. The gaming community only benefits from large community-driven events like the TORG Gaming Expo, he said.
“A lot of people, I think, form relationships over the games themselves. And so when you get to these in-person events and big community things, a lot of times you take the focus away from the game and more on the people,” Ost said. “It can be a really cool and unique way for people to strengthen those relationships, or build new relationships and focus on other stuff now that you realize that you don’t need the game to get along with these guys.”
Oscherwitz said accessibility and diversity are two values from the gaming community TORG actively tries to foster.
“When our tickets went on sale, the first person to buy a ticket [got] an automatic upgrade and it was a 60-year-old lady named Judy,” Oscherwitz said. “We have eight 9-year-olds that are volunteers because they just love doing it, so it’s just such a diverse community.”
The expo is mostly run by such volunteers, whose contributions augment the tight-knit atmosphere TORG and gaming as a whole create, Oscherwitz said.
“It’s not just a video game convention, it’s like a family reunion to a lot of us,” Oscherwitz said. “This is our one time here to get together.”
More information, including how to purchase tickets to the expo, can be found on TORG’s website.
