The Biggest Video Game Events and Organizations in New York City

New York City has been the host of many conventions for geek cultures, whether for comics, anime, tabletop games, or video games. Not only does the city see many community events in its center, but it is also home to some of the most popular game developers, some known for their successful multiplayer games and others for their deep and engaging single-player games. This year, we will be seeing even more major conventions and other community events hosted in New York City. Here are some of New York’s largest and finest pop culture events ever in 2024.

Triple-A Game Developers in NYC

The city is home to several prolific studios that have released some of the most popular games in the market. Starting with Riot Games, this gigantic game studio has released mainline e-sports games. With many players owning League of Legends and Valorant accounts, these games are prevalent for their competitive gameplay. Their games have been a big part of the E-sports scene, with many teams all around the globe competing in Riot’s official tournaments to see who can become legends.

Rockstar Games, also based in New York, is a well-known studio responsible for video game classics like Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. Their games are known to be high-quality open-world games with engaging stories and characters, and their respective online components GTA Online and Red Dead Online aren't far behind in terms of gameplay quality and replayability.

Fortnite World Cup 2019

During Fortnite’s momentous rise in popularity, New York City held the first-ever Fortnite World Cup back in 2019. Held in the Arthur Ashe Stadium, many players with Fortnite accounts took the opportunity to compete in the battle royale’s official tournament to take home the $30 million cash prize. As the game’s first official tournament, this was a highly anticipated event, with the stadium seeing many attendees watch how Fortnite would play as a competitive e-sport in the future.

BrookLAN

As the name suggests, this Brooklyn-based organization is a palace where gamers can host events and tournaments for many types of games. The organization also has a kitchen serving hungry gamers meals and drinks. Now that's how you target your market correctly.

New York Comic-Con

Comic-Con has always been a classic event where all fandoms and communities combine to celebrate pop culture as a whole. The New York Comic-Con is one of the many big events that also feature booths for video games, as many studios usually reserve booths to showcase upcoming games as public demos. Cosplayers, artists, and other members of a video game fandom will always come representing their favorite game characters. There may even be local FGC tournaments for games like Street Fighter, Tekken, Smash Bros., and many other fighting games in the market.

Games for Change Festival

New York is also the main spot for the annual Games for Change event. This event is a showcase for highly produced video games that leave an impact on society and promote positive change in the world. The event also hosts an award show for video games in different categories, such as Best Gameplay, Most Innovative Game, Most Significant Impact, and Best Student Game. G4C is also a place for student programmers and aspiring game developers to learn the fundamentals of programming languages and game design.

Play NYC

This event is all about the game development community right in New York City. It is an event for all types of developers, whether from massive professional companies to small indie developers. Many talents in the gaming industry showcase their work to the public as they interact with New York’s gamer community and meet other creators. Play NYC was explicitly made with the local game developer community in mind, giving small creators a chance to display their projects.

Major League Gaming

This organization is one of the classic E-sports groups in the industry. Located right in New York, MLG has been a solid part of the Call of Duty and Halo e-sports scene during the early 2000s, but they have since branched out to other games like DoTA 2, League of Legends, Starcraft 2, and many major fighting games. Even today, the organization continues to be an important figure in the e-sports industry, spanning across multiple competitive games.

Minecraft Battle of the Boroughs

As an initiative by the New York City state government, this event is a tournament for young students in NYC schools to create a reimagined, in-game space version of New York City. This event invites students from K to 12 to participate in a build battle to see which team can reimagine the city to be more inclusive and sustainable in the future. This event is to engage kids and make gaming into a transformative effort.