I figured there had to be a way to replace heroes, given that your games were taking three or four hours. Sounds like an OblivAeon game is sort of a mini-RPG campaign run within the rule set of Sentinels.
I presume that, since you mentioned Chekov's Hairdryer, in the third act of this thread someone will dry their hair?
We did see the 5,000 Infernal damage card, think of an End of Days but with damage, Oblivaeon is immune to this damage unfortuanetly, so even when you can redirect it, it doesn't hurt him, and it already hits all targets in that battlezone.
How about Absolute Zero + Isothermic Transducer + Twist the Ether + Fixed Point, though =)
We did see the 5,000 Infernal damage card, think of an End of Days but with damage, Oblivaeon is immune to this damage unfortuanetly, so even when you can redirect it, it doesn't hurt him, and it already hits all targets in that battlezone.
How about Absolute Zero + Isothermic Transducer + Twist the Ether + Fixed Point, though =)
That would work. Would require you to sacrifice both AZ and the Visionary though by my understanding of the rules. They would have to both be in the line of fire (visionary so that Twist the Ether would actually activate, but this is perhaps wrong) and I can't think of a way for AZ to recovery 5,000 hp before fixed point went away
Actually, just realized. Add in a bee bot and Unity and you could save Visionary and Unity by popping bee bot.
The Visionary could be in a Telekinetic Cocoon. Bee Bot is a great solution (assuming the 5k damage card is an ongoing card).
A team with AZ, Visionary, and NightMist could get away unscathed. NightMist can redirect her 5k damage over to AZ, The Visionary chooses cold, AZ heals back up to wherever he was before taking 5k fire damage =)
The Visionary could be in a Telekinetic Cocoon. Bee Bot is a great solution (assuming the 5k damage card is an ongoing card).A team with AZ, Visionary, and NightMist could get away unscathed. NightMist can redirect her 5k damage over to AZ, The Visionary chooses cold, AZ heals back up to wherever he was before taking 5k fire damage =)
Boy, you guys sure are good people. I wish I had any idea who most of you forum users were; I made a point to ask everyone's forum handle names who I really talked to, so maybe I just didn't properly meet everyone? Who knows.
I probably ended up socializing most with Phantaskippy and then Rabit, forumite-wise, and I had a great time losing to the least-helpful-caboose-owner in Isle of Trains, aka Phantaskippy. but I know for a fact I met EvanDan55, Donner, Sejixs, arenson9, Paul, and obviously Craig, Christopher and Adam. No clue if I met grysqrl, dpt, jagarcio, MorningSprite, bobbertoriley, Animus, PlatinumWarlock, schadkehnfreude, ddchasek, cinnicat, jffdougan, bolnerap, Chaosmancer, or anyone else. I don't know how I could have not met at least some of them, but I don't remember trading those usernames even once...
I mostly just worked this con, and went to geek concerts. That said, basically every hour I had free I was in the demo room for GTG, including when I was cosplaying Scholar with my wife as Ex-Patriette. Great stuff, and look forward to photos from it! There were some amazing costumes. I confused Arenson9 considerably by asking him to pose me and my wife from the "Don't Dismiss Anything" card from Scholar's deck, which he probably took to be some kind of a weird sex thing. It wasn't, Andy. Unless maybe it was.
Honestly, though, it was a phenomenal time. Everyone was so welcoming, so friendly (especially Phantaskippy in Isle of Trains), and so enthusiastic-- the GtG family especially, but really, just about everyone on the floor. It was a huge show full of people so excited to tell you about their games. I have never felt so perfectly in my element. Bought way too many games, and got to demo (and run the demos for) most of GtG's products; still got a few to try, though. I am shocked at how much fun I had whaling and demoing whaling in Nantucket and New Bedford, in which both games I learned that only a small subset of people enjoy my "We love our Empty Sea" MTV pun. Also, despite owning Bottom of the 9th, it was only in demoing it that I found just how incredibly fun that game was. I demoed it my first work day there for my whole shift, running two boards of it simultaneously for most of it, and the game sold like hot-cakes.
Thank you all for being such a great group of folks; let me know if we did meet and we just forgot to exchange forum names; and I can't wait for next year. Where I hope to keep more time open to do things like go to the Sentinels Lore stuff!
Hopefully they'll need some GMs for the Sentinels RPG next year. :)
Bowie S, pronounced like David, not like Knife, can be found in Minneapolis and has Monomaniacal Reverse Engineer d10 Death and the dice level all distinctions. -Samuel Foote
I'd been ignoring this thread because I couldn't go, then I had a 'duh!' moment of "Oh yeah, maybe they'll be talking about the games!" So I'm catching up.
phantaskippy wrote:
Apostate, who was apparently based on Christopher at the time.
Whoa. Christopher must be ripped.
Chaosmancer wrote:
I do remember one we didn't get where the mission was to Summon the Colliseium, so Kaagra or her bloodsworn pop up.
I never cease to have my mind blown by these reveals.
You don't even know. At GenCon, I saw him destroy Absolute Zero just by using his vest pocket.
Bowie S, pronounced like David, not like Knife, can be found in Minneapolis and has Monomaniacal Reverse Engineer d10 Death and the dice level all distinctions. -Samuel Foote
No clue if I met grysqrl, dpt, jagarcio, MorningSprite, bobbertoriley, Animus, PlatinumWarlock, schadkehnfreude, ddchasek, cinnicat, jffdougan, bolnerap, Chaosmancer, or anyone else. I don't know how I could have not met at least some of them, but I don't remember trading those usernames even once...
I remember seeing an awesome Scholar with a glowing Philosophers stone when I sat down for Oblivaeon, and I think I remeber a sweet expat with a foam ammo belt, but I didn't talk to either of you. It was my first time signing up for events, so I was bouncing from table to table around the con.
I was sitting with Brian when we spoke at the Wed pre-show dinner.
Quote:
I confused Arenson9 considerably by asking him to pose me and my wife from the "Don't Dismiss Anything" ...
Part of the confusion was that I am hard of hearing. Most of it was that (A) I was trying to organize things, so looking for ways to stay focused on everything going on rather than a single task, and (B) I didn't understand why you needed me to pose you if you already knew what the card looked like. But I eventually figured out that you wanted to make sure that the pose was spot on. Sorry for being a little slow on the uptake.
Quote:
... small subset of people enjoy my "We love our Empty Sea" MTV pun.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Quote:
Also, despite owning Bottom of the 9th, it was only in demoing it that I found just how incredibly fun that game was.
It's amazing how much more fun I have with most games once I commit to really learning them well. There are just SO MANY GAMES.
Great meeting you both.
Hi. My name's Andy. Feel free to call me Andy, since, ya know, that's my name. (he/him/his)
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If not now, when? If I am for myself alone, what am I? -- Hillel
I confused Arenson9 considerably by asking him to pose me and my wife from the "Don't Dismiss Anything" card from Scholar's deck, which he probably took to be some kind of a weird sex thing. It wasn't, Andy. Unless maybe it was.
Don't worry about missing me, I haven't been super active on these forums before, and I was just the volunteer at the Handelabra section of the GTG booth (tall guy, short hair, glasses, Ravenclaw lanyard). I spent the later half of all four days there. Got to meet all the Handelabra folks except MigrantP (obviously). Great group of people. Jean-Marc and I hit it off especially well.
Saturday was probably my favorite day at the booth, because we had a lot of the costumers coming around. Prime Wardens Fanatic, Expatriette, Scholar, Visionary, Luminary, Matriarch, and Super Scientific Tachyon stopped by the booth, plus two of the Handelabra folks were also in costume (Crista was Super-Scientific Tachyon as well, and Jennifer was a flip-side La Capitan). Apparently there was another flip-side La Capitan and another Matriarch roaming around, but I never got to see those two. I did run into a Greatest Legacy and a Baron Blade outside the GTG room when I was off my shift and headed to the charity auction.
The booth had three major groups of people stop by.
1) superfans who already knew about and had everything
2) people who knew about Sentinels as a card game but had no idea the app existed
3) people who knew nothing about Sentinels at all
We made a good impression on most of the visitors. The phone version was especially popular, probably because it was the most eye-catching of the three we had available (Steam / tablet / phone). There was a TV going in the upper corner of the booth, rotated for portrait mode, playing a 10-ish minute demo video that included a full battle of four heroes against Baron Blade in Enclave of the Endlings.
Several people liked the game so much that they whipped out their phones and bought it on the spot. Mobile seemed to be selling better than the Steam keys we had available, though I did see several people buy DLC packs and base games that way. One customer in particular came up and asked to try the full version (she was familiar with the base game), so I set up a PC for her to do that. After getting wasted by Apostate and asking me "how do I beat that [unpleasant adjective]", we talked strategy and she decided to pick up the season pass on the spot.
Christopher stopped by the booth for a few minutes, which was pretty cool. I chatted with him briefly about how things were going and how Handelabra helped me get into Sentinels; wanted to make sure he knew they were helping draw people in. Great guy, I can see why so many people like him.
One thing that struck me was how much networking went on at the show. We had at least half a dozen people with press badges or exhibitor badges coming around and asking about corporate issues that I couldn't speak about, so I passed them off to whichever Handelabra employee was at the booth with me at the time. Made me kind of wonder how many networking types came around during the early shift (or even before the place opened)!
We also had one visitor each lobbying for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone versions of the game.
---
I also stopped by the GTG room a couple times off-shift. One of my friends was demoing Compounded in there, plus I went to the charity auction and had fun mostly just watching that. I did bid on and win Dark Watch Nightmist, though.
One thing that struck me was how much networking went on at the show.
This.
The designers want to find a publisher. The publishers want to find the best new games. Printing companies and distribution companies want to make contacts. Paul was meeting with a couple of people from one of the printers they use. They played Sentinels of the Multiverse for the first time, despite having printed however many tens of thousands of copies. Reviewers want to get copies of games to review and audio and video for podcasts and vlogs. Publishers want to get their games to the reviewers that will have the most impact. Or possibly just to anyone who says they'll do a review. Seriously. If you want to get a bunch of games for free, set up a YouTube channel as a game reviewer and just start emailing every publisher you can find. I bet you'll be inundated, though you won't get many of the most popular games. Game store owners are there trying to find out what games to stock and trying to remind everyone else in the industry, including consumers, that if they keep getting their prices undercut by online retailers, game stores will die out and the next generation of gamers won't be able to as easily get into tabletop gaming.
The Tabletop gaming industry is both a very small industry with more people interested in making games than there's really a market for and relatively low barriers to entry. Margins on materials and labor are good, but the volume is relatively low, so no owners are going to get super rich, even if, like Asmodee, they buy up lots and lots of popular titles. There's way more people who want to work in the industry than jobs available, so salaries are modest. All of that leads to people generally being in the industry for the fun of it, which leads to a lot of friendliness. That, on top of the fractured nature of the industry, with so many small to medium companies means an almost frenzy of networking. There aren't just a few giants running the industry (though Asmodee seems to be trying to get there). That's why GenCon can end up with 500+ booths.
The industry also, as I understand it, simply doesn't have a lot of business people. For sure there are lots and lots of people _doing_business_, but they are rarely trained or experienced in business per se -- Finance, Accounting, Marketing, etc. I'm not sure if that leads to more networking or less -- my guess is about equal amounts, but perhaps more ad hoc and informal meetings than planned ones.
I posed the question to a couple of people of how many people are working full time in the tabletop gaming industry. Greater than Games has 7 or 8 and is considered medium-sized, I think. Are there 1,000 people worldwide employed full time? Does that sound like a lot? Consider that there are probably more than 1,000 people working in fast food joints in most cities, I'd guess. The university I work for has ~5,000 faculty and staff, if I remember correctly. And the industry has been growing, I'm told, by 15-20% a year for many years now. Think back 20 years -- Settlers of Catan had just been released. Magic the Gathering was just a couple years old. AD&D 2nd edition was the most recent version. So this is both a small industry and in many ways a very young industry. Lots of people are still kinda figuring out what it means to be in the industry -- both the flocks of new people entering the industry and even many of the veterans. It's rare, I think, for people to follow a "standard" career in the tabletop gaming industry of working their way up the ladder at a big company. Not many big companies, for one thing, plus so many people jumping in to start new companies all the time, or just trying to sell their design to a publisher.
The relative youth of the industry means that, from a historical perspective, we are living in amazing times. The people who have literally created this industry, by coming up with novel ways to play games, are still alive and active. I don't know if there's anyone out there doing any serious journalism on the tabletop gaming industry, but I hope so. I had a chance to hear stories from the early days of Wizards of the Coast and they were hilarious and amazing.
OK. Now I'm just rambling, time to get some sleep.
Hi. My name's Andy. Feel free to call me Andy, since, ya know, that's my name. (he/him/his)
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If not now, when? If I am for myself alone, what am I? -- Hillel
Meeting 2 members of the Adaptive Subroutines was really cool. Sadly we failed to get a game of tactics in, but it was great to meet and talk Tactics with one of the tournament teams when I play a much more casual game of tactics.
=] Thanks for the name drop! We had fun chatting with you too!
We mostly demoed Tactics all four days, and got a chance to meet a good handful of you, which was unequivocally a pleasure. As anyone who dropped by the demo room can likely attest, all of the new games(Lazer Ryders, looking at you) were a ton of fun! Everyone who came in for the costume contest looked super sweet, and it was cool seeing the broad demographics that >G appeals to. Thanks to everyone who came by and made Gen Con a great time!
"But dice are dice, and Dice are Fickle"
Internet Pseudonyms: PseudonymTwitch, PseudonymTweetr, PseudonymGamer
Andy, that was an awesome post, and if another Awards were to happen, obvious nominee for Truth Seeker! Great investigative journalism. Feel free to wax nostalgic and ramble your heart out. Top marks.
Bowie S, pronounced like David, not like Knife, can be found in Minneapolis and has Monomaniacal Reverse Engineer d10 Death and the dice level all distinctions. -Samuel Foote
No clue if I met grysqrl, dpt, jagarcio, MorningSprite, bobbertoriley, Animus, PlatinumWarlock, schadkehnfreude, ddchasek, cinnicat, jffdougan, bolnerap, Chaosmancer, or anyone else.
Belatedly - I can verify at least one of these things happened, and if you've ever played online with some scrub who kept on disconnecting and re-appearing, it wasn't the first time we've played. We demoed Oblivaeon together and your wife stepped up like a champ to handle all the bookkeeping, which.... yeeeesh. This hopefully won't be a spoiler to anyone who hasn't seen it, but we had a cool Legacy-Expatriette combo going in our game and I'm kinda flummoxed at how teams won't get overrun without it.
eviltoon wrote:
when I was cosplaying Scholar with my wife as Ex-Patriette. Great stuff, and look forward to photos from it! There were some amazing costumes. I confused Arenson9 considerably by asking him to pose me and my wife from the "Don't Dismiss Anything" card from Scholar's deck, which he probably took to be some kind of a weird sex thing. It wasn't, Andy. Unless maybe it was.
Oh my!
Belatedly, I got a few pictures and a vid from the costume contest, though not with me at the moment - I mostly remember Fanatic, Super Sci Tachyon, Unity and flipped LeCap, though they were all fantastic - especially the one GTG staffer who cosplayed as Christopher.
We had an awesome Legacy combo as well, getting him heroic interruption and immune to melee every turn.
Truly, Oblivaeon will be the best place to exploit the incapped abilities. I would be stunned if a team was able to beat him with zero incaps, but potentially having 5 incapped heroes on the board allowing crazy combo moves makes me giggle inside.
Actually, also as expceted, Oblivaeon is probably one of the worst fights to go with an all random set-up. Our first game went very smoothly because our first environment was the Freedom Tower and we were able to get all the beneficial cards out and they stayed out the entire match.
we had a cool Legacy-Expatriette combo going in our game and I'm kinda flummoxed at how teams won't get overrun without it.
Never been so happy with Hairtrigger Reflexes. What was it, six or seven damage every time someone popped up out of the doorway while Legacy was there? So beautiful.
Bowie S, pronounced like David, not like Knife, can be found in Minneapolis and has Monomaniacal Reverse Engineer d10 Death and the dice level all distinctions. -Samuel Foote
Oh my!Belatedly, I got a few pictures and a vid from the costume contest, though not with me at the moment - I mostly remember Fanatic, Super Sci Tachyon, Unity and flipped LeCap, though they were all fantastic - especially the one GTG staffer who cosplayed as Christopher.
Would you be willing to post those pictures when you get a chance? I was one of the Matriarchs at the costume contest, and I've been lurking for awhile, hoping to see pictures.
Oh my!Belatedly, I got a few pictures and a vid from the costume contest, though not with me at the moment - I mostly remember Fanatic, Super Sci Tachyon, Unity and flipped LeCap, though they were all fantastic - especially the one GTG staffer who cosplayed as Christopher.
Would you be willing to post those pictures when you get a chance? I was one of the Matriarchs at the costume contest, and I've been lurking for awhile, hoping to see pictures.
You're probably right about PW vs. Redeemer.You didn't make me uncomfortable, I'm just keen to give credit where credit's due, and there are a lot of people who volunteered a LOT more time at this GenCon then I did -- about forty or so, I'd say. I do tend to help a bit for setup and breakdown at GenCon, but aside from that, the last con I volunteered for GtG was in 2013. As for Who's Yer Con, yes, I organized a thing, but it wasn't an official event, just something we did for fun that anyone who has a regional con nearby could do.
Understood. I was working in part from memories of descriptions of Gen Cons past, and your very public presence around here in trying to help organize things. Didn't realize it had been that long since you'd "officially" volunteered, since more than one person have talked about you & Rabit as being the people to look for at the GtG booth.
No clue if I met grysqrl, dpt, jagarcio, MorningSprite, bobbertoriley, Animus, PlatinumWarlock, schadkehnfreude, ddchasek, cinnicat, jffdougan, bolnerap, Chaosmancer, or anyone else. I don't know how I could have not met at least some of them, but I don't remember trading those usernames even once...
I remember seeing an awesome Scholar with a glowing Philosophers stone when I sat down for Oblivaeon, and I think I remeber a sweet expat with a foam ammo belt, but I didn't talk to either of you. It was my first time signing up for events, so I was bouncing from table to table around the con.
I was only there on Saturday, and I had a 10-year-old in tow the whole time - I'd have been pretty easy to spot.
Wow, Chaos, that's a ton of stuff!
I figured there had to be a way to replace heroes, given that your games were taking three or four hours. Sounds like an OblivAeon game is sort of a mini-RPG campaign run within the rule set of Sentinels.
I presume that, since you mentioned Chekov's Hairdryer, in the third act of this thread someone will dry their hair?
How about Absolute Zero + Isothermic Transducer + Twist the Ether + Fixed Point, though =)
Lead Bit Flipper, Handelabra Games
Developer of Sentinels, Bottom of the 9th, and Spirit Island
Thanks to everyone in this thread whose been reporting in from gencon. Those of us who can't attend do appreciate it.
Stop lurking, it makes you look like a villain target
When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all
That would work. Would require you to sacrifice both AZ and the Visionary though by my understanding of the rules. They would have to both be in the line of fire (visionary so that Twist the Ether would actually activate, but this is perhaps wrong) and I can't think of a way for AZ to recovery 5,000 hp before fixed point went away
Actually, just realized. Add in a bee bot and Unity and you could save Visionary and Unity by popping bee bot.
The Visionary could be in a Telekinetic Cocoon. Bee Bot is a great solution (assuming the 5k damage card is an ongoing card).
A team with AZ, Visionary, and NightMist could get away unscathed. NightMist can redirect her 5k damage over to AZ, The Visionary chooses cold, AZ heals back up to wherever he was before taking 5k fire damage =)
Lead Bit Flipper, Handelabra Games
Developer of Sentinels, Bottom of the 9th, and Spirit Island
Awesome.
Alternatively, everyone other than AZ at the same health, and Smoke Bombs.
"Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?"
- Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
My first GenCon!
Boy, you guys sure are good people. I wish I had any idea who most of you forum users were; I made a point to ask everyone's forum handle names who I really talked to, so maybe I just didn't properly meet everyone? Who knows.
I probably ended up socializing most with Phantaskippy and then Rabit, forumite-wise, and I had a great time losing to the least-helpful-caboose-owner in Isle of Trains, aka Phantaskippy. but I know for a fact I met EvanDan55, Donner, Sejixs, arenson9, Paul, and obviously Craig, Christopher and Adam. No clue if I met grysqrl, dpt, jagarcio, MorningSprite, bobbertoriley, Animus, PlatinumWarlock, schadkehnfreude, ddchasek, cinnicat, jffdougan, bolnerap, Chaosmancer, or anyone else. I don't know how I could have not met at least some of them, but I don't remember trading those usernames even once...
I mostly just worked this con, and went to geek concerts. That said, basically every hour I had free I was in the demo room for GTG, including when I was cosplaying Scholar with my wife as Ex-Patriette. Great stuff, and look forward to photos from it! There were some amazing costumes. I confused Arenson9 considerably by asking him to pose me and my wife from the "Don't Dismiss Anything" card from Scholar's deck, which he probably took to be some kind of a weird sex thing. It wasn't, Andy. Unless maybe it was.
Honestly, though, it was a phenomenal time. Everyone was so welcoming, so friendly (especially Phantaskippy in Isle of Trains), and so enthusiastic-- the GtG family especially, but really, just about everyone on the floor. It was a huge show full of people so excited to tell you about their games. I have never felt so perfectly in my element. Bought way too many games, and got to demo (and run the demos for) most of GtG's products; still got a few to try, though. I am shocked at how much fun I had whaling and demoing whaling in Nantucket and New Bedford, in which both games I learned that only a small subset of people enjoy my "We love our Empty Sea" MTV pun. Also, despite owning Bottom of the 9th, it was only in demoing it that I found just how incredibly fun that game was. I demoed it my first work day there for my whole shift, running two boards of it simultaneously for most of it, and the game sold like hot-cakes.
Thank you all for being such a great group of folks; let me know if we did meet and we just forgot to exchange forum names; and I can't wait for next year. Where I hope to keep more time open to do things like go to the Sentinels Lore stuff!
Hopefully they'll need some GMs for the Sentinels RPG next year. :)
Bowie S, pronounced like David, not like Knife, can be found in Minneapolis and has Monomaniacal Reverse Engineer d10
Death and the dice level all distinctions. -Samuel Foote
I'd been ignoring this thread because I couldn't go, then I had a 'duh!' moment of "Oh yeah, maybe they'll be talking about the games!" So I'm catching up.
Whoa. Christopher must be ripped.
I never cease to have my mind blown by these reveals.
You don't even know. At GenCon, I saw him destroy Absolute Zero just by using his vest pocket.
Bowie S, pronounced like David, not like Knife, can be found in Minneapolis and has Monomaniacal Reverse Engineer d10
Death and the dice level all distinctions. -Samuel Foote
I remember seeing an awesome Scholar with a glowing Philosophers stone when I sat down for Oblivaeon, and I think I remeber a sweet expat with a foam ammo belt, but I didn't talk to either of you. It was my first time signing up for events, so I was bouncing from table to table around the con.
I was sitting with Brian when we spoke at the Wed pre-show dinner.
Part of the confusion was that I am hard of hearing. Most of it was that (A) I was trying to organize things, so looking for ways to stay focused on everything going on rather than a single task, and (B) I didn't understand why you needed me to pose you if you already knew what the card looked like. But I eventually figured out that you wanted to make sure that the pose was spot on. Sorry for being a little slow on the uptake.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
It's amazing how much more fun I have with most games once I commit to really learning them well. There are just SO MANY GAMES.
Great meeting you both.
Hi. My name's Andy. Feel free to call me Andy, since, ya know, that's my name. (he/him/his)
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If not now, when? If I am for myself alone, what am I? -- Hillel
Well, you know... don't dismiss anything.
Lead Bit Flipper, Handelabra Games
Developer of Sentinels, Bottom of the 9th, and Spirit Island
Don't worry about missing me, I haven't been super active on these forums before, and I was just the volunteer at the Handelabra section of the GTG booth (tall guy, short hair, glasses, Ravenclaw lanyard). I spent the later half of all four days there. Got to meet all the Handelabra folks except MigrantP (obviously). Great group of people. Jean-Marc and I hit it off especially well.
Saturday was probably my favorite day at the booth, because we had a lot of the costumers coming around. Prime Wardens Fanatic, Expatriette, Scholar, Visionary, Luminary, Matriarch, and Super Scientific Tachyon stopped by the booth, plus two of the Handelabra folks were also in costume (Crista was Super-Scientific Tachyon as well, and Jennifer was a flip-side La Capitan). Apparently there was another flip-side La Capitan and another Matriarch roaming around, but I never got to see those two. I did run into a Greatest Legacy and a Baron Blade outside the GTG room when I was off my shift and headed to the charity auction.
The booth had three major groups of people stop by.
1) superfans who already knew about and had everything
2) people who knew about Sentinels as a card game but had no idea the app existed
3) people who knew nothing about Sentinels at all
We made a good impression on most of the visitors. The phone version was especially popular, probably because it was the most eye-catching of the three we had available (Steam / tablet / phone). There was a TV going in the upper corner of the booth, rotated for portrait mode, playing a 10-ish minute demo video that included a full battle of four heroes against Baron Blade in Enclave of the Endlings.
Several people liked the game so much that they whipped out their phones and bought it on the spot. Mobile seemed to be selling better than the Steam keys we had available, though I did see several people buy DLC packs and base games that way. One customer in particular came up and asked to try the full version (she was familiar with the base game), so I set up a PC for her to do that. After getting wasted by Apostate and asking me "how do I beat that [unpleasant adjective]", we talked strategy and she decided to pick up the season pass on the spot.
Christopher stopped by the booth for a few minutes, which was pretty cool. I chatted with him briefly about how things were going and how Handelabra helped me get into Sentinels; wanted to make sure he knew they were helping draw people in. Great guy, I can see why so many people like him.
One thing that struck me was how much networking went on at the show. We had at least half a dozen people with press badges or exhibitor badges coming around and asking about corporate issues that I couldn't speak about, so I passed them off to whichever Handelabra employee was at the booth with me at the time. Made me kind of wonder how many networking types came around during the early shift (or even before the place opened)!
We also had one visitor each lobbying for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone versions of the game.
---
I also stopped by the GTG room a couple times off-shift. One of my friends was demoing Compounded in there, plus I went to the charity auction and had fun mostly just watching that. I did bid on and win Dark Watch Nightmist, though.
This.
The designers want to find a publisher. The publishers want to find the best new games. Printing companies and distribution companies want to make contacts. Paul was meeting with a couple of people from one of the printers they use. They played Sentinels of the Multiverse for the first time, despite having printed however many tens of thousands of copies. Reviewers want to get copies of games to review and audio and video for podcasts and vlogs. Publishers want to get their games to the reviewers that will have the most impact. Or possibly just to anyone who says they'll do a review. Seriously. If you want to get a bunch of games for free, set up a YouTube channel as a game reviewer and just start emailing every publisher you can find. I bet you'll be inundated, though you won't get many of the most popular games. Game store owners are there trying to find out what games to stock and trying to remind everyone else in the industry, including consumers, that if they keep getting their prices undercut by online retailers, game stores will die out and the next generation of gamers won't be able to as easily get into tabletop gaming.
The Tabletop gaming industry is both a very small industry with more people interested in making games than there's really a market for and relatively low barriers to entry. Margins on materials and labor are good, but the volume is relatively low, so no owners are going to get super rich, even if, like Asmodee, they buy up lots and lots of popular titles. There's way more people who want to work in the industry than jobs available, so salaries are modest. All of that leads to people generally being in the industry for the fun of it, which leads to a lot of friendliness. That, on top of the fractured nature of the industry, with so many small to medium companies means an almost frenzy of networking. There aren't just a few giants running the industry (though Asmodee seems to be trying to get there). That's why GenCon can end up with 500+ booths.
The industry also, as I understand it, simply doesn't have a lot of business people. For sure there are lots and lots of people _doing_business_, but they are rarely trained or experienced in business per se -- Finance, Accounting, Marketing, etc. I'm not sure if that leads to more networking or less -- my guess is about equal amounts, but perhaps more ad hoc and informal meetings than planned ones.
I posed the question to a couple of people of how many people are working full time in the tabletop gaming industry. Greater than Games has 7 or 8 and is considered medium-sized, I think. Are there 1,000 people worldwide employed full time? Does that sound like a lot? Consider that there are probably more than 1,000 people working in fast food joints in most cities, I'd guess. The university I work for has ~5,000 faculty and staff, if I remember correctly. And the industry has been growing, I'm told, by 15-20% a year for many years now. Think back 20 years -- Settlers of Catan had just been released. Magic the Gathering was just a couple years old. AD&D 2nd edition was the most recent version. So this is both a small industry and in many ways a very young industry. Lots of people are still kinda figuring out what it means to be in the industry -- both the flocks of new people entering the industry and even many of the veterans. It's rare, I think, for people to follow a "standard" career in the tabletop gaming industry of working their way up the ladder at a big company. Not many big companies, for one thing, plus so many people jumping in to start new companies all the time, or just trying to sell their design to a publisher.
The relative youth of the industry means that, from a historical perspective, we are living in amazing times. The people who have literally created this industry, by coming up with novel ways to play games, are still alive and active. I don't know if there's anyone out there doing any serious journalism on the tabletop gaming industry, but I hope so. I had a chance to hear stories from the early days of Wizards of the Coast and they were hilarious and amazing.
OK. Now I'm just rambling, time to get some sleep.
Hi. My name's Andy. Feel free to call me Andy, since, ya know, that's my name. (he/him/his)
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If not now, when? If I am for myself alone, what am I? -- Hillel
=] Thanks for the name drop! We had fun chatting with you too!
We mostly demoed Tactics all four days, and got a chance to meet a good handful of you, which was unequivocally a pleasure. As anyone who dropped by the demo room can likely attest, all of the new games(Lazer Ryders, looking at you) were a ton of fun! Everyone who came in for the costume contest looked super sweet, and it was cool seeing the broad demographics that >G appeals to. Thanks to everyone who came by and made Gen Con a great time!
"But dice are dice, and Dice are Fickle"
Internet Pseudonyms: PseudonymTwitch, PseudonymTweetr, PseudonymGamer
Andy, that was an awesome post, and if another Awards were to happen, obvious nominee for Truth Seeker! Great investigative journalism. Feel free to wax nostalgic and ramble your heart out. Top marks.
Bowie S, pronounced like David, not like Knife, can be found in Minneapolis and has Monomaniacal Reverse Engineer d10
Death and the dice level all distinctions. -Samuel Foote
Belatedly - I can verify at least one of these things happened, and if you've ever played online with some scrub who kept on disconnecting and re-appearing, it wasn't the first time we've played. We demoed Oblivaeon together and your wife stepped up like a champ to handle all the bookkeeping, which.... yeeeesh. This hopefully won't be a spoiler to anyone who hasn't seen it, but we had a cool Legacy-Expatriette combo going in our game and I'm kinda flummoxed at how teams won't get overrun without it.
Oh my!
Belatedly, I got a few pictures and a vid from the costume contest, though not with me at the moment - I mostly remember Fanatic, Super Sci Tachyon, Unity and flipped LeCap, though they were all fantastic - especially the one GTG staffer who cosplayed as Christopher.
We had an awesome Legacy combo as well, getting him heroic interruption and immune to melee every turn.
Truly, Oblivaeon will be the best place to exploit the incapped abilities. I would be stunned if a team was able to beat him with zero incaps, but potentially having 5 incapped heroes on the board allowing crazy combo moves makes me giggle inside.
Actually, also as expceted, Oblivaeon is probably one of the worst fights to go with an all random set-up. Our first game went very smoothly because our first environment was the Freedom Tower and we were able to get all the beneficial cards out and they stayed out the entire match.
Never been so happy with Hairtrigger Reflexes. What was it, six or seven damage every time someone popped up out of the doorway while Legacy was there? So beautiful.
Bowie S, pronounced like David, not like Knife, can be found in Minneapolis and has Monomaniacal Reverse Engineer d10
Death and the dice level all distinctions. -Samuel Foote
Would you be willing to post those pictures when you get a chance? I was one of the Matriarchs at the costume contest, and I've been lurking for awhile, hoping to see pictures.
Seconded!
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Hobos have been living off of pigeon jerky for years! - Olly
Understood. I was working in part from memories of descriptions of Gen Cons past, and your very public presence around here in trying to help organize things. Didn't realize it had been that long since you'd "officially" volunteered, since more than one person have talked about you & Rabit as being the people to look for at the GtG booth.
I was only there on Saturday, and I had a 10-year-old in tow the whole time - I'd have been pretty easy to spot.
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