Yesterday I went to the Sydney Gaming League event. Its basically a big LAN event where people from all over the Sydney region get together with their PCs and have a good time.
The sad truth of this event is, nearly 90% of attendees were not interested in gaming at all. Instead, they all fired up DC++ ( a file sharing program) and shared files (you can guess what kind) with each other. The other 10% (the TRUE PC gamers) were having fun playing games with each other or just playing their favourite niche / not horribly overhyped / not heavily markted game and getting passerby gamers asking questions about it (aka me).
The event has taken a few steps forward in the past year, it is now associated with Cyberslam (our local competitive gaming organiser) which is good for the competitive gamers and hosts some qualifiers for some of their tournaments there (the one I noticed was UT3 which most of the serious competitive gaming scene would probably laugh at). It also seemed to have gotten a few more sponsors this time round due to the association with Cyberslam such as EA (which had playable 360s with Battlefield: Bad Company) and various other PC hardware vendors coming along.
It was a nice event, but I really REALLY wish there were more serious gamers there. I detest what piracy has done to PC gaming in particular, my original and still primary platform for my gaming activities. To see a room full of nearly 200 people just file sharing really just irks me to say the least.
Ah well, my day was made when someone asked what I was playing (it was Sins of a Solar Empire - I'll be expecting the marketing payment in the mail Brad hahaha 
). I was also immensly happy at how fantastic my new PC is compared to all the other setups out there. Mine was without a doubt the classiest and most visually appealing PC there.
Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder (I don't have a clear case window or flashy lights), but my PC is the most elegant and easiest on the eye while still screaming state-of-the-art. My friends remarked that my PC case (its a case big enough to hold a server in) looked like some sort of Necron monolith, but what can I say, I like a big case that gives everything lots of room to breath and function. 
At the end of the day, I still had fun (minus everyone else's file sharing activities). I've added to someone else's complaint on their forums hoping to get rid of this file sharing non-sense and get the SGL live up to its name.
PS - A local TV show called Cybershack was there also, recording some footage. I'm hoping I make it into the file cut in one of their panning shots (I wasn't interviewed sadly - wish I was - being one of the few real gamers there).