This Just In…From GenCon 2009! Wrap-up
A little over a week after the convention doors closed, Ryan releases the traditional yearly Gen Con wrap-up that Ken Hite & Paul Tevis do (with special guest producer Ryan Macklin, apparently). It should be noted that this recording started 1am on GenCon Monday.
- 00:20 – Ryan heralds the virtual arrival of Paul & Ken in an exhausted manner.
- 01:50 – Ken begins the commentary on the effects the economy has had on GenCon
- 02:23 – Ryan talks briefly about the RPG bloggers & podcasters, turning the discussion to new media navel gazing.
- 04:55 – Paul saves us by relating it back to the economy and its effects on GenCon.
- 06:15 – Ken talks about the transition of booths in the dealer hall.
- 07:20 – And we go briefly back to gaming new media.
- 08:10 – And Godwin’s Law is demonstrated.
- 08:30 – Hero Sixth Edition sold well, without the book even being there. And many other people did very well, like Pelgrane & Adventure Retail.
- 09:40 – Talking about the split up of “indie alley”
- 10:47 – Moving onto Gen Con’s management & investing in the convention — the new registration system & iPhone app.
- 11:46 – Welcome to 2007, Paul.
- 12:13 – “It’s not that they’re in survival mode.” / “They’re in growth & improvement mode.”
- 12:49 – Paul talks about the difference between this and last years This Just In. This year was less product-oriented.
- 14:08 – And Paul makes us fix this remedy. Our list:
- 14:22 – Action Castle
- 15:22 – Homecoming: one soldier’s story
- 16:35 – Sign In Stranger: Making Contact
- 16:55 – Bloodstained Stars
- 17:30 – Venus 2141
- 19:30 - S/Lay W/Me
- 22:20 - GURPS Vorkosigan (Angry fan mail can be directed to Paul)
- 23:35 – Geist: the Sin Eaters (for a look at the visuals, check out the quick start guide)
- 26: 13 – “If Ed Healy is liking something, the odds are it’s certainly worth paying attention to.”
- 26:32 – Pathfinder (and talk about the production model and its amazing success)
- 29:02 – Cubicle 7 Pathfinder supplements
- 29:24 – “4/e was selling membership in a brand. Paizo was selling membership in a religion.”
- 29:45 – Starblazer Adventures
- 31:13 – Warhammer Fantasy 3rd Edition (Preview at Gen Con, not yet out)
- 31:40 – Fantasy Craft
- 33:20 – Warriors & Warlocks
- 34:35 – Paul acknowledges special guest producer Ryan Macklin
- 34:53 – Spycraft 2.0 Pocket Edition
- 36:08 – Volume, indeed
- 36:34 – Paul asks Ken about the Day After Ragnarok different form factors between the Savage Worlds edition & Hero Edition.
- 37:44 – Weird War II for Savage Worlds
- 40:20 – Chronica Feudalis
- 41:23 – Clearly, there needed to be more post-production. I was punchy at nigh 2am.
- 41:57 – “The Gen Con of Twitter”
- 43:43 – The ENnies live-tweeted the results as they happened. And somehow Ryan neglected to boast about the Evil Hat ENnies he accepted for.
- 44:10 – Hi, Rob.
- 46:34 – We declare it to be late.
- 46:45 – But not so late that Ken can’t remind us of our duty of pimpage:
- Rough Magicks for Trail of Cthulhu
- Day After Ragnarok, Hero 6th Edition Version (A note that it’s the first Hero 6th supplement, alongside The War of Worldcraft, both of which are third-party books.)
- Cthulhu 101
- The Antarctic Express
- Grim War
- 50:15 – And Paul gets in on the pimpery train:
- 51:20 – And the trio closes out the show as they should, with some fine scotch.
I apologize for the poorer audio quality. This was recorded in a hotel room, we were tired, but for all you hardcore fans out there, here you go. And a big thank-you to Ken & Paul for, well, being Ken & Paul on tape.
And again, thank you to our friends at OgreCave for the show-note support at the con. Beers are on me.
Running time: 51:57 / File size: 35.7M
Categories: GenCon 2009
Great wrap-up! A few comments:
One, I’m really glad to hear that a bunch of the ideas I gave to the Starblazer developers during the writing process turned into stuff that Ken found worthy of praise. Plot stress has been banging around in my head for ages (it has its ancestry in Fate 2.0, where it could be expressed more concretely in terms of the stress track, but Fate 3.0’s fluidity with consequences and such makes for a pretty entertaining model as well). Scaling everything in Starblazer ala the “Fate Fractal” method definitely pays off well here, too.
Two, the IPR booth “not doing as well” thing. Reality turns out to be a little more nuanced — IPR definitely made fewer sales this year, but it did so with less inventory, a smaller catalog, and a smaller booth, all of which (along with a few other things) contributed to an overall lower cost of attendance this year. In terms of profit made, this year’s IPR booth did as well as if not better than last year’s. I think the leaner model of attendance is more sustainable as well, the way that convention attendance and shipping costs have been going up.
Thanks for covering GenCon, guys. Please do it again.