In addition to being a collector of all kinds of boardgamery, our old friend Eric recently attended GenCon. Let us live vicariously through him as I needle him about his experiences there.

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Collin : You recently got back from GenCon! Tell me, as someone relatively uninitiated, what GenCon is.

Eric : GenCon is North America’s largest gathering of gamers. It focuses on roleplaying games, but was originally for miniature wargames. In recent years, boardgames are growing faster and faster. Many of the big publishers hold their big releases and announcements for GenCon.

Collin : Kinda like toy companies with ToyFair and SDCC.

Eric : Pretty much. This year, the big announcement was D&D 4th Edition and the big release was White Wolf’s Changeling: The Lost. WizKids had a HaloClix pre-release tournament.

Collin : Plus their Galactus tournament!

Eric : True - I forgot about that. I’m not really a Clix player these days.

Collin : They lost me at Clix 2.0. I think that’s how they killed MageKnight too. WHY WON’T THEY LEARN?

Eric : Because they’re still making money.

Collin : Do you think that in ‘perfecting’ game mechanics over a long period of time, it ultimately hurts a lot of games by alienating oldschool players?

Eric : It depends on how you go about it. “Over a long period of time” is fine. You take what you have and tweak the rules slightly with an expansion or two, or “errata” on your website - that can work. Making new stuff and old stuff incompatible is bad and alienates players, no matter how much better the new stuff is. It’s not limited to collectible games, either.

Collin : Would you rather have ‘perfect’ and ‘accurate’ game mechanics, or fun ones? Or do they have to be mutually exclusive?

Eric : I don’t think there IS a perfect mechanic. My primary question with games is, “is it fun?” There ARE fun games with great mechanics. There are fun games with very little in the way of mechanics. Again, I reference “No Thanks!” - very few mechanics. Very quick-playing game. Lots of fun. “Ca$h’n Gun$” is another very fun light game.

Collin : Have you ever found yourself abandoning a game because of the rule changes, or how they were brought about?

Eric : I don’t play collectible games anymore - Mechwarrior and Pirates of the Spanish Main being the ones I spent the most on. I’ve dropped most Games Workshop games, too.

Collin : What turned you off?

Eric : With Mechwarrior, it was too many rules changes with too little a difference in play. The goal of the changes was to provide some customization and control. What it did was wound up making sure that the same three or four pieces were highly sought, as they were useful out of proportion to their point costs. For Pirates, it was too little change. The game went through too many sets that didn’t have any sort of uniqueness or flavor to them. I dropped Warhammer 40k because I was tired of every army having to be rebuilt for the new rules every three years. And the newest army released was always the most powerful.

Collin : Back to GenCon! What capacity did you attend GenCon in? Player, or… more?

Eric : I attended as an Exhibitor with Asmodee Editions - I’m a member of their demo team.

Collin : What did you demo there?

Eric : Dungeon Twister, Wicked Witches Way, Mall of Horror, Mission: Red Planet, Jungle Speed, Mr. Jack. Age of Gods, Frontiers, Ave Caesar, Iliad
Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow and Ca$h’n Gun$.

Collin : So you pretty much got to play all day!

Eric : From the time the Exhibit Hall opened on Thursday morning until the time it closed on Sunday. It was 10-6 daily, though the days all kinda blur together, with more gaming out in the open gaming areas after the hall closed.

Collin : Did tedium ever set in, or was it amazing?

Eric : I cannot imagine ever getting tired of good games.

Collin : What’s the general atmosphere of GenCon like?

Eric : GenCon is the single most amazing social event I have ever been a part of. Everyone there is a gamer. Or is dating/married to a gamer. Or is the parent/child of a gamer.

Collin : So there’s a real feeling of community? As opposed to the itchy, sweaty feeling of say, a Comic Con?

Eric : Gaming is a community. It’s a small one, but it’s growing.

Collin : Any kind of crowds?

Eric : I say “small” but GenCon is usually in the 25-30k range. That’s people, not dollars.

Collin : So, you could walk around without becoming way too familiar with everyone around you?

Eric : Very easily. There are familiar faces - people you’ll play games with every year.
I have a friend who is a podcaster - I only ever see him in person at GenCon.

Collin : You can’t say that about a Comic Con.

Eric : So I hear. Something we’re seeing more and more at GenCon is actual females! It’s still not even close to a 50/50 split, but it’s improved.

Collin : How did you become an exhibitor? Your involvement with gaming as a hobby became something more professional?

Eric : My local game store owner introduced me to a man who was running demos for Days of Wonder. We helped him out at a couple of local game stores, as well. He worked for both DoW and Asmodee Editions, and they needed someone to help out with their translation. I don’t read French, but my English is passable. They sent me a set of rules for Dungeon Twister, and there were some unclear parts - I cleaned them up. They responded by inviting me to Origins and GenCon to help demonstrate the game.

Collin : That’s an awesome way in! Do you ever see yourself doing gaming as a career or full-time thing?

Eric : I’d love to, but as much as I love the industry, I don’t know that I could. It’s a small industry, and profit margins are very slim.

Collin : That said, how much profit did they make offa you at the Con, when you weren’t demo-ing?

Eric : Not too much, actually - I’m a firm believer in supporting my local game store.
I use GenCon as a scouting run. I’ll pick up things which don’t have distributors or which are difficult to find/out of print. This year, I bought Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game, Torg Revised and Expanded, and the new Battlestar Galactica RPG.

Collin : Is GenCon more about new games, or are their vendors with older games too?

Eric : Both - it’s more about the new games than the old, but the old games DEFINITELY make their presence known. Especially at the auction. I’ve only ever watched, but it’s a great place to find rare and out-of-print items. By “rare,” I mean, “frequently one-of-a-kind.” Frequently, you’ll find autographed copies of games. Or games with people’s notes scrawled in them. I’ve seen copies of Dune or Talisman expansions - sometimes, still in the original shrinkwrap. I’ve read about one of the ping-pong guns from one of the early GenCons being auctioned off.

Collin : Ping pong gun?

Eric : Ever played “Killer”? Or “Assassin”?

Collin : I have not.

Eric : It’s a game where you have a target. And your goal is to “kill” them. In high school, I put a paper bag in a friend’s locker that said “Bomb” - and ran a string to the door of the locker, just for example. When the friend opened the locker, it “killed” him.
So I then got HIS target. Game plays to last person still “alive”. At one of the early GenCons, apparently TSR staffers were playing the game using ping-pong ball guns.
One of those guns was auctioned off. TSR was the publisher of D&D until they were bought by Wizards of the Coast. They owned and operated GenCon.

Collin : I saw similar things at the Pez convention - memorabilia from earlier conventions was pretty popular.

Eric : My wife wants you to know she’s available to dish dirt on me, if you want.

Collin : …are there any dark gaming secrets that the readers will thrill to?

Eric : Um … we’re not Satanists?

Collin : … but you play D&D.

Eric : I know. It’s such a shocker.

Collin : I dunno. 1980s documentaries would have me believe that the two are irrevocably linked. Gamers have, at least, defeated the stigma of being satanists and murderers and are now just harmless geeks.

Eric : FINALLY.

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And so we have Eric : passionate gamer, and yet, still a married man. Has a steady job. Can hold a perfectly normal conversation. A credit to gamers everywhere.

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Article Tags: , Asmodee Editions, board, D&D, Days of Wonder, gamers, games, GenCon, Mechwarrior, miniature, roleplaying, Warhammer 40k, White Wolf, WizKids, Zombie

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This entry was posted on Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 3:00 am and is filed under interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.