HEXUS.gaming made the trip today to the NEC in the West Midlands where the Computer Trade Show is running for the next couple of days.

We'll be providing the full story on all channels shortly, with news of some cool gaming peripherals for the HEXUS.gaming readers. Before that, I wanted to get something of my chest.

The Computer Trade Show is now in its ninth year and interest seems to be dropping. Although I didn't personally attend last year's show, this year's was apparently quieter and had fewer stalls. HEXUS.gaming approached the show from a gaming angle hoping to find something that hadn't been uncovered at CeBIT.

What we did uncover was many of the distributors' sheer lack of knowledge about the products they ship, and the gaming industry as a whole - either the PR reps had slipped off for an early lunch or The Muppets had gate crashed CTS.

At a show where companies are promoting their products, I felt extremely demotivated by a number of them. There were a number of nice-looking gaming keyboards on show but a number of companies couldn't explain them to me - "Are the keys programmable" I'd ask. " Don't know", they'd reply. "Do you know someone who does know", I'd respond. "Perhaps if I could take your business card and email you the information", they'd reply with minimal interest. If I wanted the information emailed I would have stayed at home! This was a standard response from a number of the gaming distributors on a number of different questions. It may have just been a bad staff day, or perhaps it was my super cool HEXUS shirt that hypnotised them into losing their memory.

The worst example was the chap from a company called ******, one of the UK's leading distributors of gaming peripherals. The PR guy knew nothing about any of his products. In some cases didn't know the answer to the simplest of questions. In others, he fumbled his way through lame explanations - he even showed me an office keyboard and told me it was specifically for gamers.

Perhaps distributors feel they don't need to be knowlegable about the products they deal in - the manufacturers would, of course, have a different view. I'm sure they'd be fuming to hear that some companies are representing their products in a negative manner. These guys just didn't care, they knew the prices of the goods but nothing else.

Of course many of the stalls were full of knowledgeable, friendly people, who'd go out of their way to explain their products, but the ones that didn't really got my goat.

Hey it's not all bad though! We'll bring you some pics and news on the actual event tomorrow, just wanted to have a rant.