Saturday, March 21, 2009

Gaming Conventions

I'm planning on attending a major gaming convention this year and trying to get Toph to come as well.

The cons I'm considering:

  • Gen Con Held every year in Indianapolis, IN, Gen Con is the largest (I think) gaming convention in the states. This year the dates are August 13-16. Being the biggest, Gen Con probably gets the most big company attention--vendors and the like.
  • Origins Held annually in Columbus, OH, Origins is another major con. This year the dates are June 24-28. I know there is an exclusive board game room with a vast collection of games supplied by the local game club. My birthday falls during these dates, so I may pass on this one for that reason.
  • World Boardgame Championship Much smaller than the first two cons on this list, the WBC is, however, exclusively a board game event. Held in Lancaster, PA, so this one is within 7 hours of my house by car. This is certainly a feature! Dates are August 3-9, and since I have a work conflict on the 3rd & 4th I'll miss the first two days.
  • Board Game Geek Con The details of this one were just announced so I don't know as much about it. Pros are it will be exclusively board game related, and I might recognize some people from the web site. Cons are that it is much farther away than the WBC (Texas), and I will be working full time in November when it takes place.

My first impressions are that I will enjoy either the WBC or the BGG con the most, and the latter being at an unfortunate time and place chances are the WBC will win out even though I'll be forced to miss the opening portion.

Why do I want to go to a con? The board game vendors will be awesome. There will be hoards of board game enthusiasts with which to play and converse. Most of all, however, I'd like to play lots of new games. It is very difficult buying board games without playing them first, since there are so many out there and only a small percentage of those will be ones I love. Perhaps this convention will help me explore the available options a little bit better, and focus my future purchases exclusively on titles I already know I enjoy.

Hopefully I'll get the whole trip planned out soon. Anyone reading this who'd like to meet up there, let me know!

1 comment:

Chris Shaffer said...

BGG con is a gigantic room full of people playing pick up games. WBC is very tournament focused. I suspect both will have less dealers than you'd like, but I've never been to either.

GenCon and Origins are both great choices. GenCon has a much bigger exhibit hall, but significant portions of it are devoted to trading cards, roleplaying, computer games, etc.

Have you been to a regional convention? Some of them are quite nice.