No Soup (Gen Con) For You!

After the horrors of the Chicago 2013-2014 winter, I asked the mechanic I've taken my car to, to look it over. I knew that it was a terrible winter. It was so bad that where I work shut down for a few days because they had to do a lot of mechanical maintenance and other bits aside. My car was having trouble starting and tended to be shaky when on the expressway. The mechanic is fantastic in terms of his mechanical abilities but...

Tells me I need spark plugs. Get those.

Next day car doesn't start.

Have huge drama getting it to Auto-Zone and it's a whole story here of how I wind up buying a new battery from Tripple A and having some locals repalce my starter.

Total damage including the sparkplugs? $500 bones roughly.

So that's in like May.

Then my mom is driving the car while taking my sister back and hey, there's this awesome snapping noise that sounds like the car's been struck.

NOW the mechanic has no time for me, but gives me a recommendation to another guy he knows.

Rear brakes completely shot.

Rear axle completely shot.

Water pump worthless.

Motor Mounts gone. That was the loud SNAP my mom heard.

There was some other things wrong too and all in all, roughly $3,500 bones.

First, while I know the mechanic who usually looks at the car knows what he's doing, he could not possibly have missed all of that if he had bothered to look for it. Seriously, it can't all happen at one time.

Second, the car is twelve years old. While it was a Saturn and was still getting about 20 mph, and its paint was peeling but not rusting because it wasn't metal, I knew that it was only matter of time before some serious issues hit.

I was honestly expecting it to be the transmission. After all, it was an old car.

But that just meant that if I spent the $3,500, that was something else I could look forward to going out.

So I went out and bought a Kia Soul.

So now I'm on the hook for a few bones for many a month.

But in theory, I could have still went to Gen Con BUT...

About four years ago now, my mom was experiencing debilitating pain when walking. I almost had to carry her down the stairs and had to bring a chair to the flights between levels so she could rest. So among the many reasons I hate doctors is that they don't' know what their doing. My mom went through x-rays, MRI scans, electro-shock tests, muscle tests, bone density tests, and a lot of finger pointing from one specialists to the next.

So with her diabetes, she gets a foot infection and BAM! Half her left foot has to go. But hey, turns out that the pain? That was PAD, Peripheral Artery Disease and yeah, for almost two years no doctor could figure that out. So before she gets the foot lopped off, she has to have arteries transferred to allow blood flow to get to the foot so that the surgery to remove the infected part of the foot actually works.

So then it's four months of physical rehab. The place isn't bad for the most part, but the food is downright atrocious. So terrible that she doesn't eat unless I bring food to her, so that meant for about a third of the year I was going to the rehab place every day, but hey, it was only a few blocks away so that was win.

But in talking about my hate of doctors, they give her a shoe that is visually not good. Where the front meets the back, there is an obvious overlapping section. They insist that she wears it. Hey, it gives her newly healed foot a blister. A wound on the amputated food of a diabetic.

So for the last oh, eightteen months I've been taking her to see a wound specialist. The meeting is before I'm off work so lots of vacation time used up there. Mind you I've used vacation time on some of my own things, because lord knows I get sick myself, but the majority of my vacation and floating holidays, went to taking the mom to the doctor.

So with little money and only a few days of vacation left, which I break into half days to take mom to the doctor, at least four times a month, I made the decesion to skip Gen Con this year.

On one hand, it's a bummer. I enjoyed running games and seeing all the great art and meeting the creators and getting Con exclusives.

On the other, well, I still haven't painted everything I bought from Gen Con last year. I still haven't played all the games I bought last year. I still haven't read all the books I bought last year. It's not that I wouldn't buy more if given the opportunity, it's just I'm not suffering from it.

Another thing limiting my disappointment with not going this year, is that, as in years past, several companies are doing sales for those that aren't going. Several companies are even selling the convention exclusives through the web store for the duration of the convention. I was going to pick some stuff up from one store, but for three books to ship it seemed an excessive charge. Perhaps it's a weird thing but if shipping three books is now $12+ dollars, it's a good thing I'm an Amazon Prime member.

Heck, some of the very late Kickstarters have even started to trickle in so there's that to keep me amused at least. Speaking of Kickstarters I'll have to do another post about that and my own recent actions with them.

Anyway, that's my sob story. I might have been able to sneak down there for a day but I wasn't going to pay $50 to wander the Dealer's Hall for one day and play a few pick up games when I have a regular group and two good gaming stores down here.

For those who did get to Gen Con, how was the trip? It seemed crowded last year but it's a big con and I suspect getting bigger with more mainstream acceptance thanks to movies and board games. Heck, Amazon has a deal of the day for numerous board games and the Fate RPG.

I do miss the food trucks through. Well I ain't missing no meals I assure you, the novelty of the food trucks and the variety of food is great. I wish we had them here. Chicago politicians seem dead set against actual capitalism despite the defense of that word whenever they want to stomp on someone, 

Anyway, tell me of the good stuff you bought. Point out some great threads of Con loot. Post some links to the awesome!

Gen Con 2013: The Dealer's Hall

Popping in some thoughts on Gen Con 2013 that I'll try to break into chunks that are related to one another.

+Mark CMG snagged some photos of the dealer's hall and I joked that it was more like a flea market. Only I wasn't really joking.

For years, decades even, the 'dealer's' has been less and less about publishers and more and more about stuff. Note I'm not putting this into a negative context as I bought a lot of that stuff myself.

However, with that change of focus, I have to wonder what the overall effects are?

For example, there are several resellers with prices better than the company. It's great to see Games Workshop at the convention. They also have a leg up on resellers in that they have Forge World items with them. However, it's going to be a tough sell if a buyer knows across the way they're selling GW stuff for 30%, wait it's Sunday? I mean 35% off. There were also booths selling books three for $10 or buy one get three free.

And this isn't necessarily 'old stuff' either. I wouldn't place money on it, but I could have sworn I saw a few booths selling the new Wyrd boxed sets for the 2e game at 20% off on Thursday. Imagine that you are a game company and you came out with a game that you need to sell and there cutting you off at the knees are one of the stores you sell to. And trust me, there were multiple stores in the hall that were resellers. You can't necessarily say, "Hey dude, would you mind not selling this stuff here because you know, your space isn't as important as my space?" Probably not going to work.

And in terms of publisher woe, well.... When I've mentioned Kickstarters and gaming publishers, I have mentioned that I'm not surprised when something is late. I've mentioned that in many if not all Gen Con's I've been at, something happens that is not good for the publisher. Cubicle 7 took a beating from their printer this year on multiple books.

In terms of selling all you got... well, that can be a good thing or a bad ting. For one, gamers like the shiny and if your shiny isn't out when they want it because it sold out, there is zero guarantee they'll want it later when it's restocked. This happened to a few spots like Wyrd with the 2nd edition book of Malifaux or with Gale Force 9 and their Firefly game.

Gen Con exclusives are another reason I can see a game publisher actually going to the convention. Gale Force 9 had a dndnext adventure that looks like it was deliberately put together badly and is, in my opinion, hugely overpriced, while Privateer Press and Wyrd continue with their Gen Con limited edition miniatures. For Wyrd it's not that big a deal as they often have a 'general' release of whatever miniature it was that had a special edition at the con.

In terms of 'stuff', I personally bought some zombie styled dice and cards. Not a card game mind you, just cards. I also buy my g/f shirts ever year because she likes some of the art and prints.  Sometimes I'll snag her a hat or something else along those lines.

For credit card use, there were still a few booths that couldn't take a credit card. One company I wanted to buy from, GCT Studios, had a 'sweet spot' of $100 for two starter factions and the core book but only took cash. What type of expectation for cash carrying do companies have? "Well, everyone carries around a stack of hundred dolla bills no?

Another vendor who was selling Badger air brushes, would only allow people to use the card on Thursday through Saturday and only if they were doing a $40 or higher purchase.

People, you need to join the rest of us in the new era. When hot dog vendors are using square  and other solution providers to that and your solution is to stick your fingers in your ears...

Let me pick on GCT studios again for a second. Entrance into the show itself probably isn't cheap. Then you're from overseas. While I was standing at the booth, I saw at least two interested parties have to pass on a purchase. Ironically enough, if they stumbled upon the company's website, they COULD use a credit card to make a purchase. If you're not going to limit your sales online in terms of how you accept payment, why would you do that to yourself at a convention? Do you think the people walking through the booth are going to be like, "Man, they are financially wise by avoiding any transaction fees at all. Pure profit for them." or do you think they'll be like me and go, "Gee, the OSR booth takes credit cards and damn does that big frog demon from Center Stage Miniatures look sweet.

Another interesting thing was the fact that the guy from Badger was there at all. And he wasn't alone. The guys from Grex were there as well. This to me indicates a growing acknowledgement of the importance of Gen Con to those markets. I hope they both come back next year. Strangely enough, I didn't see any Scale75 sellers or AK Interactive sellers. I think that with stores like Games Plus there, that +RK Berry needs to get out there and provide some of those ranges, including Andrea, that just aren't being sold there.

In terms of the organization of the hall?

Whoever put the garbage cans in the middle of the aisles should be beaten.

The standard 'con' rules should be in place for the beating of stupid people. "I know foot traffic is going this way, but hey, I'm slender and this fifty pound back pack isn't going to hit anyone else when I fight against that flow."

"Hey, I know that people are trying to move, but shit, this is Larry here. Larry! I have to have a conversation with him straight in the middle of the hall. Screw common courtesy. That shit died in the 80's man."

"Listen, this tweet I received is very important and I have to stop. Come to a dead stop in the middle of the floor and look at it."

There were other sorts of behaviors I saw that were I a younger, angrier man might get me in trouble but those days are long over.

A good thing/bad thing about the acceptance of how far the hobby has come, is that there were a lot of people in various types of mobile devices. Some of these manual hand powered wheel chairs, one of them piloted by a woman whose speed and control of her vehicle was fantastic, and others, most others if not all others, using the electronic chairs. I don't begrudge anyone the right to come to the con and enjoy it. I do think however, that as the con grows and the need to accommodate these devices grow, that they need to expand the paths themselves if not the halls.

I also think that they need to increase the hours of the dealer's hall. While I know that sounds crazy to pretty much every person who works the hall the reality is with so many of the 'dealer's' not being publishers but being vendors and resellers to begin with, they'd probably be cool with it and it could help to alleviate the number of people in the hall at any one time. It could even increase sales. Crazy talk. That whole ending at 4:00 PM on Sunday thing? What the hell is that? When they first started doing that, did someone have to get to Church or was that the time they started legally selling beer?

I apologize for the ranting. Let me see if I can summarize.

1. Resellers are selling your stuff cheaper than you do.
2. Credit Card acceptance still not at 100%.
3. New types of vendors and sellers in the hall.
4.Lots of exclusive releases still hitting the dealer floors.
5.Lots of great deals on older games.

I'll be back with more thoughts after a LOT of sleep. I hope everyone had a great con. Were there any weird encounters at the convention? Any bits you think should have been better?