Re: Now Dream Pod 9?!?

On Wed, 25 Feb 1998 09:42:52 -0600, "Mark A. Siefert."
<cthulhu@csd.uwm.edu> wrote:

>	Well, you learn something new everyday, and sometimes it's just
not
>worth learning it.   This morning I have just learned that Dream Pod 9
>WILL NOT be present at GenCon this year.  Along with Steve Jackson
>Games, Tri-Tac, R. Talosin Games, and others not attending, this year's
>GenCon may be a) very small, b) the last one.

First, this is old news. It's at least two weeks old. 

Second, it's not QUITE true. It seems that while Dream Pod 9 will not
be in attendance, they are looking at selling their stuff at another
booth. Likewise for R. Talsorian and Palladium. Palladium, I believe,
will be sold at the Chessex booth. So far I've hard of SJG, R. Tal,
Palladium and Tri-tac. There were also a couple of tiny RPG companies
that also joined in the boycott. I haven't heard of anyone new for a
couple of weeks. The only company I know for SURE whose products you
won't find is SJG.

I doubt if GenCon will be very small. Apparently some smaller
companies that could never get a crack into the dealer's room will be
there. Others are piggy-backing on other booths or selling their stuff
through other people. 

And, as was discussed in the rec.games.frp.misc group, the booth
prices really aren't the biggest portion of some of these company's
costs. Sure, if you have ten booths and your costs went from US$500 to
over US$800 per booth, you're looking at serious change. But take a
company like Pagan Publishing as an example. They have one booth which
will increase by about US$300. This pales in comparison to the cost of
hotel rooms, meals, and airline costs. And Pagan made 20% of its
revenue at GenCon last year.

I will contend that GenCon is now better for the smaller companies,
the ones that have difficulty getting into regular game stores. SJG's
stuff I can get anywhere, anytime. Pagan and even GZG I have trouble
with. I intend to buy a whack of GZG's figures this year (I meant to
last year but ran out of money :-)  ). I think the smaller companies
will do okay. It's the bigger ones like ICE, White Wolf and Chaosium
that will have to scale down their booths. Last year the first two had
gaming areas in the dealer's room. Chaosium had a lot of extra (I
would say "wasted") space in its booths that wasn't used for
displaying stock. They will still be there but there space will be
smaller, leaving more room for more companies.

It's too early to pull the plug on GenCon. It may just have a touch of
the flu.

Allan Goodall	     agoodall@sympatico.ca

"Once again, the half time score, 
 Alien Overlords: 142,000. Scotland: zip."
  - This Hour Has 22 Minutes