GenCon Comments

 

GenCon 2025 continued the trend of recent GenCons by selling out attendance (See “GenCon 2025 Sets New Attendance Record”). I can remember the days when 50,000 attendees was considered an amazing number. Now it’s “oh 70,000+ people attending”  even though it is the largest annual convention in Indianapolis and the second largest regular event in Indy, only eclipsed by the Indianapolis 500.

I judge how well a game or other product is going to do based on, not on how much buzz it gets at GenCon or Origins but rather what items my customers ask for after the event ends. This is what happened with Magic The Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th editions, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Vampire the Masquerade, Pokemon and Yu Gi Oh.

Using this metric, things I expect to do well are:

Starfinder 2E—as is their wont, Paizo released the new edition to the channel at the same time the company launched it at Gencon. We have taken pre-orders on this for months and had customers come pick up their copies as soon as we notified them they had arrived.

Gundam—Both the Gundam TCG and the Gundam Assemble miniatures game have had significant interest. The Gundam TCG has proved hard enough to stock in that I expect it to go the way of the original Final Fantasy TCG which, available while it was in demand only through one distributor, saw a drastic drop in interest when supplies became more widely available. Much as with their One Piece TCG, Bandai seems unable to print enough product to satisfy the demand, increasing speculation on the game and making it harder to hold tournament or other sanctioned play, which has become the lifeblood of most TCGs.  Since Gundam Assemble is not a collectible product, at least I hope not, and I have had a number of customers ask about it, both before and after GenCon. Unfortunately, I am not seeing an official release date posted yet and it looks as if initial orders will be allocated.  If they are, I hope Bandai has more product in the pipeline to arrive soon.

Riftbound—Despite the excitement about the game at GenCon, we have not had any customers asking about it. The buzz around it reminds of that around another TCG based on a MOBA, the World of Warcraft TCG which launched with great fanfare and filled tables at GenCon and Origins in 2005, released in 2006, slowed down enough to get sold off in 2010 and petered out in 2013 (See”WOW TCG Calls It Quits”).  The store did make a decent amount of money off WOW but primarily from people wanted to buy the packs in the hope of getting codes to unlock special in-game items.  Actual card play petered out within a year or two. From what I can tell, Riftbound packs do not include Riot Codes, so that will exclude that segment of the market. Will it sell?  Certainly. Will it displace Magic, Pokemon or Yu Gi Oh?  Yes, temporarily but over the long term I doubt it.

Gen Con Trivia

 With GenCon coming soon. Pop Insider has published  48 bits of trivia about the history of D&D and GenCon

Omega Virus

 Picked up a working copy of Milton Bradley's Omega Virus talking electronic game. Electronic talking games were very popular during the 1990s, with Dark Tower the most sought after, still commanding a price close to $400 for a working copy. Omega Virus was available at the 1992 Gencon and I remember seeing dozens of people walking the halls of the building with a copy of the game. It was the first mass market game I recall seeing a publisher bring to Gencon.

Gen Con Theft

 If you have heard about the $300,000 Magic theft at GenCon, you may have heard that the Persons of Interest desinged a boardgame.  Here is the link to a description of the game, released back in 2015

Star Wars at GenCon

 One of the highly useful things about Gencon is to get a feel for how various games are doing. Since Gencon is the largest game convention in the US, what people player there give a pretty good indication as to how the game is doing, on average, througout the country. 

Cases in Point Disney Lorcana and Star WArs. Disney Lorcana had people lined up and waiting for 14 hourse, a line of them sleeping in the hall overnight, which is something GenCon has chosen not to allow in the past. That indicates a lot of interest in Lorcana, at least initially. Wheter the game will have legs is another matter but I would expect to see great sales for it for the first release.

On the other hand, Star Wars play was prtetty minimal. Atomic Mind has an extine event hall rented out for playing the various Star Wars games, with space for a couple of hundred players. On Saturday afternoon, the peak playtime of the entire convention, over half the tables were empty. Couple that with stores discounting Star Wars Shatterpoint to get it off their shelves and the Star Wars line does not appear to have a strong future.

Lorcana at Gencon

 It looks as if Ravensberger did not anticipate the demand at Gencon for Disney Lorcana as people waited 14 hours in line for the opportunity to purchase the game, only to have the company open up another exhibit hall, sending the people who had waited in line back to the end of the new line. In addition, Ravesnberger's registration system for demos of Lorcana, which let you leave with a Lorcana promo, now selling for over $100, allowed one person to register for multiple demos, allowing them to attempt to garner multiple promos. Once Ravensburger realized this, they wiped the entire system, forcing those people who had registered properly to have to go back and register again.

The company was also limiting purchases of Lorcana to one and attendees' badges got punched to show they had already made their one purchase. Here is what was available at GenCon and we should have limited quantities of these available on the 18 with a tournament on the 19th

Disney Lorcana: The First Chapter Booster Pack – $5.99 each (Limit 24 packs/1 display. Total display price: $143.76)

Disney Lorcana: The First Chapter Starter Decks -$16.99 each (contains 1 Booster Pack) Amber/Amethyst (Limit 1) Ruby/Emerald (Limit 1) Sapphire/Steel (Limit 1)

Captain Hook, Elsa, or Mickey Mouse Card Sleeve Pack (Limit 1 design) – $9.99

Captain Hook, Elsa, or Mickey Mouse Deck Box (Limit 1 design) – $5.99

Maui, Maleficent, or Mickey Mouse Neoprene Play Mat (Limit 1 design) – $19.99

The Queen or Stitch 10-Page Portfolio ( 4-Pocket Pages, Limit 1 design) – $19.99

Gencon Incident

A shoving incident involving the President of GAMA has escalated to the point that a police report has been filed. No word yet as to whether charges will be filed. Here is the official GAMA board statement on the incident and here is GAMA President and Iello Head Stephan Brissaud' statement.

And then there is this: The GAMA board has opted not to renew the contract of GAMA Executive Director John Ward

Record GenCon Attendance

Another record setting year for Gencon with over 60000 people attending, a 16% increase from last year and $70 million pumped into the Indianapolis economy.

Survival Tips for GenCon

GenCon is coming up in less than a month and Blaine Pardoe has put together a list of 35 survival tips for GenCon. To his tips I would add, don't touch the cosplayers. Just as cosplayers should not wear outfits that cause them to bump into other convention attendees, a cosplay outfit is not an invitation to hug or otherwise touch the wearer.

Gencon Close to Selling Out

According to the below email from GenCon, the convention will have no onsite sales of badges and is close to selling out for the time in its history:

Thursday badges have now sold out and only a limited amount of Friday badges remain for Gen Con 50. This is your last chance to get into the historic show! Gen Con is approaching its first full-sell out, and interested attendees will not want to wait to secure their Friday badge. There will be no onsite sales of badges, so don't delay; order your badge at gencon.com! 

Liz Danforth

If you don't know who Liz Danforth is, take a look here. She  worked as an artist in the gaming industry steadily from the 1970s through the 1990s, primarily for Flying Buffalo, ICE and early Magic, ( There are a few of her original works hanging on the store walls) when life interfered. In the past few years, she has re-entered the industry, doing much of the art for the relauch of the Tunnels and Trolls RPG.

You can find more details here but for the first time in many years Liz decided to submit work to the GenCon art show. Briefly, the jury for the art show turned down her submissions, which triggered an avalanche of support for her and encouraged her to decide to more actively "art". She has launched a Patreon page here so if you would like to support one of the artists from the early days of the industry, who is getting her second wind, here's your chance.

GenCon Staying in Indianapolis

Through at least 2021.  There has been some concern by the convention that it is getting too big for the Indianapolis facilities to handle but apparently that concern has been dealt with.  

4 Comments on the Four Greatest Days in Gaming

Scott's column on ICV2 this week is 4 comments on the event, written before it was half over.

Final Thoughts on Gencon 2105

Wrapping up a Magic Game Day weekend while grading final exams makes for a very busy weekend but I still had some thoughts about last week’s Gencon:

1.        Attendance.  Reported attendance topped 61,000 people. That’s over double 2010’s attendance of  just over 30,000 through the door and, while still just under half the attendance of the pre-eminent pop-culture convention, San Diego Comic Con, the numbers GenCon posts far eclipse that of the second largest gaming convention, Origins, which posted n numbers of just under 16,000 this year. Whatever else one might say about Gencon, and lots of people have lots of things to say, the people running it are certainly doing something right to generate those kinds of numbers.

2.       Dealer’s/Exhibit Hall.  With the kind of attendance numbers GenCon has generated the past decade, the convention has become THE place to be if you are a game company, especially if you are a smaller game company or a seller of gaming related paraphernalia, such as t-shirts, bags, etc. As I mentioned last week, a number of companies reported selling out of their con stock of a production run on day one (Looney Labs and Green Ronin come to mind) and had to get a rush delivery to restock for the rest of the con. However , the huge demand for space in the hall has caused GenCon to move to a priority points based system for allocation of space, with vendors needing to accumulate so many points in order to get a booth. Factors determining the number of priority points a vendor gets include number of years displaying at Gencon, size of the booth, sponsorship level and other factors that I wasn’t able to find with a quick search.  This means that smaller vendors with low priority point levels get relegated to less desirable spots in the hall. Couple that with a booth fee in excess of $1500 for a 10’ x 10’ booth and smaller vendors can feel  quite squeezed, to the point where they may find it financially infeasible to return to the show.

3.       GenCon Releases.  Still quite a bit of a problem with small publishers even after all these years. Wanting to make a splash and draw attention to their booths, publishers hold or target new releases for GenCon (see the aforementioned Looney Labs and Green Ronin.  Batman Fluxx released the week after Gencon and we still have not seen Fantasy Age or Titansgrave in store yet). This doesn’t hurt stores that are a good distance away from Indianapolis. However, one of the selling points for Indianapolis as a location for GenCon is that 70% of the US’s population lies within about a day’s drive of the city, meaning that a good number of stores lose sales to Gencon.  It’s also possible to look at this problem in another way. True, the store lost sales to Gencon, but the store can also look at this as a demo opportunity. I know of stores that have customers come back with Gencon purchases and want to play them in the store. Instead of getting angry, the store manager looks at this as a promotional opportunity, taking advantage to show the game off to those customers that did not get to go to Gencon, and there are a lot of them out there.

And with that, Gencon 2015 is on the books.

A Quick Look at GenCon

Gencon, in case you missed it, took place this past weekend. I did not go. Missed the sign up date for the Trade Day and had other things to work on but did hear a few interesting tidbits from the show. 

Upper Deck’s Vs. card game attracted quite a bit of attention. The game has shifted format from a collectable version to a customizable one, apeing Fantasy Flight Games LCG system, though of course they cannot call it that. The Cypher System rules from Monte Cook Games also had a successful launch as did Titansgrave and the Fantasy Age rules from Green Ronin, no doubt building on the success of Wil Wheaton’s Titansgrave web series.

 Looney Labs, meanwhile, sold through 200 hundred copies of Batman Fluxx, nearly all they brought, on day one of the show. Not too shabby.

Word of the day on the Exhibit Hall floor, though, was “Kickstarter” as many smaller companies were either selling games they had just produced through Kickstarter or talking about upcoming releases they planned to fund through Kickstarter. Amazon tied into Gencon with a Daily Deal offering a number of board and card games, including offerings from Steve Jackson Games, Iello, Asmodee, Cool Mini or Not and Days of Wonder, among others at discounts ranging from 35% to just over 50% off.

More comments likely on the show later in  week.

GenCon and The Religious Freedom Restoration Act

GenCon has received quite a bit of attention this week over its stance on the recently signed Indiana Religious Freedom Act, essentially telling Gov. Mike Pence that it would look for a new location if he signed the act, which he proceeded to do, joining 19 other states, including Illinois, with similar laws. Of course, given GenCon's that GenCon's contract with the convention center there runs until 2020, I doubt we will see them leave early as breaking such a contract generally comes with heavy financial penalties.

While I am not a big fan of laws like this, it is the business' choice to opt to not to serve customers based on religious beliefs and the law supports their decision to do so. Most stores are in business to make money and turning away a customer is generally not a good idea. The best thing that you as a customer can do is boycott any business that opts to discriminate against customer based on religious reasons and tell them you are doing so. Of course, this has much more effect if you are currently a customer. Telling a business with which you have never done business that you will no longer do business with them will likely elicit a confused look and a shrug.

GenCon Wrap Up

Here's the final wrap up sent out by GenCon today.  Just over 56,000 people attended, over double from 5 years ago:

Gen Con Attributes Record-Breaking 2014 Numbers to Growing Partnership between Gamers and Indianapolis Community

INDIANAPOLIS (August 19, 2014) Gen Con 2014, completed August 14-17 at the Indiana Convention Center, experienced another year of record attendance numbers and unprecedented growth. For the fourth consecutive year, Gen Con grew by more than 10%. This year, reaching more than 14% year-over-year growth with a weekend turnstile attendance of 184,699 and unique attendance of 56,614. This number surpasses 2013’s previous record of 49,530 unique attendees. Since 2009, Gen Con’s annual attendance has more than doubled.

“Gen Con 2014 is a testament to a more than decade-long relationship between Indianapolis and the game industry, which has culminated in the best attendee experience yet,” said Adrian Swartout, CEO and owner of Gen Con LLC. “Gen Con is a massive yearly adventure that would not be possible without the collaboration and support of our show sponsors, exhibitors, event organizers, volunteers, local business partners, the Indy community, and of course, our attendees.”

Another new record in 2014 was set for donations to Gen Con’s Official Charity Partner. Gen Con raised more than $40,000 for Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana’s BackSacks program, which provides weekend food to children at-risk for hunger. This donation includes a $20,000 check provided by Mayfair Games’ Cones of Dunshire event, a charitable game played Saturday, August 16 on Georgia Street.

"Since their first show in Indy in 2003, Gen Con has evolved into more than just a great convention for gamers - it's become a one-of-a-kind cultural event," said Leonard Hoops, president & CEO of Visit Indy.  "The entire Indy hospitality community is proud to host Gen Con and we congratulate their team on yet another record-breaking year."

Due to Gen Con’s expansion throughout the Indiana Convention Center, the show also featured record numbers of exhibitors (370+) and events (14,000+).
Gen Con 2015 will return to Indianapolis July 30 - August 2, 2015.

Gen Con News

I am not attending GenCon this year but am keeping up with news and new releases announced there through a very hopping Twitter feed. Facebook updates are interesting but usually discuss booth set-up, how tired people were, or how amazing (or not) sales were. People are using Twitter to announce news about new releases.

 Ergo, some major announcements from Steve Jackson Games and Fantasy Flight Games

Take Steve Jackson Games (please). They launched Hipster Dice and Classic Car Wars  at GenCon and announced the following Munchkin releases:  Love Shark Baby, a 15 card expansion pack for Munchkin coming next January just in time for St. Valentines Day;  Munchkin Kobolds Ate My Baby (All hail King Torg. You get the joke if you’ve ever played a game of Kobolds) though no indication as to whether it will release as a 15 card pack, 112 card set or a full boxed set  (my money is on the full boxed set though I have my doubts that Kobolds Ate My Baby (All hail King Torg) is strong enough to support a full box set) and the big get Munchkin Apocalypse Judge Dread.  I have commented before  on the amount of licensing Steve Jackson Games has done with Munchkin in the past year so more licenses do not particularly surprise me but the Judge Dred one is pretty spiffy. Like Kobolds Ate My Baby (All hail King Torg), I do not know if Judge Dred still pulls enough attention in the market to drive large Munchkin sales.

 Adventure Time will, though, and I saw one picture showing Munchkin Adventure Time already on the racks at GenCon.Given the anticipation for that version, it would have been nice if USAopoly had managed to get it in stores at the same time as they offered it for sale at GenCon. WotC and Paizo were both able to do it, so a company with the distribution expertise of USAopoly ought to be able to do so.

Board Game Geek did ae exemplary job live tweeting the Fantasy Flight Games presentation mentioning in the first few minutes that Fantasy Flight has grown over 25% annually since 2000 and that the company has shipped more than 30,000 Organized Play kits.  That’s a lot of Organized Play.

Other notable announcements during the presentation:  X-Wing will introduce the Scum and Villainy faction later this fall with about 7 ships coming in the wave, as well as an online “Mission Control” system for players to track what they own for the game; Star Wars Armada for outer space mass combat coming out early 2105, along with Imperial Assault, a miniatures board game somewhat similar to Descent; Mountains of Madness for Eldritch Horror late this year, along with Order and Chaos for the Netrunner LCG.  Armada and Imperial Assault both have quite a lot of potential but price on them will be key. A big selling point of X-Wing is the comparatively low price point for entry into the game.

By the way, if you get a copy of the new Advanced Class Guide for Pathfinder, check out the major proofreading error on the front cover. Bet that gets changed by the next printing.

Gencon Pathfinder Releases

Here's the new Pathfinder coming out at Gencon:

Pathfinder RPG:

Advanced Class Guide

 

Adventure like never before with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Advanced Class Guide! Explore new heights of heroism with 10 new base classes, each with 20 levels of amazing abilities. Incredible powers also await existing characters, with more than a hundred new archetypes and class options. Prepare characters for their most legendary adventure ever with massive selections of never-before-seen spells, magic items, and more!

 

SRP: $39.99 Ea.

Pathfinder Adventure Path #85: Fires of Creation   The Iron Gods Adventure Path begins with "Fires of Creation," an exciting new adventure set in Numeria, land of barbarians and super-science! In the town of Torch, the settlement's unignorable tower of violet flame has gone out. The only clue to its disappearance is a newly discovered cave dug nearby. Are the heroes bold enough to unearth the otherworldly secrets that sleep beneath the city and reignite the fires of Torch? Or will their first foray into Numeria's ancient mysteries be their last?   SRP: $22.99 Ea.

Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Technology Guide   It's one thing to face a dragon armed with a longsword and a suit of magic plate mail, but what if you had an atom gun and powered armor? How many zombies could you blow up with a rocket launcher? What happens if you're standing next to a graviton reactor when it explodes? All of these questions and more are answered within the pages of the Technology Guide-an invaluable manual of items, hazards, and character options for use in science-fantasy settings like Golarion's Numeria, land of savagery and super-science!   SRP: $19.99 Ea.

Pathfinder Player Companion: People of the Stars   Travel to other planets and harness the powers of the stars with Pathfinder Player Companion: People of the Stars! Whether you want to play a Golarion native daring the depths of outer space or an alien being exploring your own mysterious homeworld, you can unlock the secrets of the stars with the new rules, advice, and fantastic setting details in this volume. People of the Stars presents a player-focused discussion of the Pathfinder campaign setting's solar system and the diverse creatures, dangers, and rewards just waiting to be discovered.   SRP: $12.99 Ea.

Pathfinder Map Pack: Starship Chambers   What mysterious creatures dwell upon this bizarre extraterrestrial craft? Paizo Publishing's latest Pathfinder Map Pack provides stunningly crafted 5" × 8" map tiles that can be positioned to form modular, customizable spaceship chambers-whether in an abandoned wreck that serves as an unusual dungeon, or a ravaged but still functional lifeboat depositing its crew on a strange new world. Inside, you'll find 18 richly crafted map tiles.   SRP: $13.99 Ea.

Pathfinder Tales: Reign of Stars   When the leader of the ruthless Technic League calls in a favor, the mild-mannered alchemist Alaeron has no choice but to face a life he thought he'd left behind long ago. Accompanied by his only friend, a street-savvy thief named Skiver, Alaeron must head north into Numeria, a land where brilliant and evil arcanists rule over the local barbarian tribes with technology looted from a crashed spaceship. Can Alaeron and Skiver survive long enough to unlock the secrets of the stars? Or will the backstabbing scientists of the Technic League make Alaeron's curiosity his undoing?   SRP: $9.99 Ea.