No WotC At Gen Con This Year?

It looks like Wizards of the Coast will not be attending Gen Con this year. They've just posted a list of the conventions they'll be attending in 2016, and noted their intention to support conventions that they don't normally get to attend. "Gen Con is not on this list because we are changing things up to support more conventions and locations. Even though the Dungeons & Dragons team won’t be there we know our friends at Baldman Games will be hosting plenty of D&D adventures. It’s safe to say there will be ample opportunity to play Dungeons & Dragons during Gen Con. We’re excited to head to some new conventions this year and meet folks who don’t have the opportunity to travel to Indianapolis."

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The list of conventions WotC will be attending is Winter Fantasy (February, Fort Wayne, IN), Gary Con (March, Lake Geneva, WI), PAX East (April, Boston MA), Origins (June, Columbus OH), and PAX Prime (August, Seattle WA).

Chris Perkins will be hosting another Acquisitions Inc event at PAX East, and Origins will be the "D&D tabletop gaming event of the year" with sneak peeks and a return of the D&D Open. PAX Prime will have the highest concentration of D&D staff present.

Read more about their convention plans here.

 

[Cybit]

PAX prime is about the same size as Gen Con, give or take a couple thousand people. PAX East is, I think, about half the size.

I think folks are focused too much on how many people are going, and instead consider *which* people are going. Consider - is there anyone so motivated as to go to GenCon that isn't already up on what WotC is doing? It isnt' really a big marketing opportunity if they aren't reaching new people - attending GenCon would be fan service, at best.

At more local cons, they may be better able to do outreach.

Prime is about 10,000-15,000 people bigger than GenCon (70,000 vs 60,000, though I think with the last expansion in 2015, we can get up to 75,000 folks), and I believe East is officially the same size as PAX Prime (now West) as of 2015 (The site at PAX East is much bigger than the site at PAX West).

 

[Mistwell]

Prime is about 10,000-15,000 people bigger than GenCon (70,000 vs 60,000, though I think with the last expansion in 2015, we can get up to 75,000 folks), and I believe East is officially the same size as PAX Prime (now West) as of 2015 (The site at PAX East is much bigger than the site at PAX West).

That's unclear. First because there is a difference between unique visitors, daily visitors, and turnstile counts. Second, because Pax hasn't released official numbers for either since 2011. I think it's fair to say Pax and Gencon are both bigger conventions.

 

[Umbran]

I believe East is officially the same size as PAX Prime (now West) as of 2015

The estimates I saw were that PAX East 2015 had about 30K to 35K a day. Unless the majority of those are one-day passes, I don't see how that gets to the 60 or 70K individual attendees of PAX Prime.

(The site at PAX East is much bigger than the site at PAX West).

Well, that depends on which halls in the BCEC PAX uses. The place is huge, yes, but few events use it *all* at once.

 

[UnsounderGnome]

I dont for a second thing all this is because of a dust up. I think it actually is WOTC deciding to put its resources elsewhere considering Baldman has it covered.

I would be with you on this, but Baldman runs Winter Fantasy and runs the D&D events at Origin just like at Gen Con. I've been to Winter Fantasy and Baldman does an even better job there than at Gen Con. Last year was Baldman's first year running D&D at Gen Con on their own. I felt like they did an ok job, but the experience suffered from WotC not being there. Baldman did their best, but there were problems. Also, WotC is bringing back the D&D Open, which has always been held at Gen Con since, to Origin. Why would they bring that back to a convention that has a quarter of the attendance?

 

[skerritthegreen]

Why would they bring that back to a convention that has a quarter of the attendance?

Because at Origins they can get a large, quiet room where you can do it justice. And since the WOTC is also going to Origins, they can also be onsite to help with the launch.

 

[jayoungr]

But I thought the logic behind their not going to GenCon was that people there wanted to play, not hear announcements. So they want to go to other cons...so they can have people play?

I'm also rather amazed that they don't want to do some grand announcements for Magic: the Gathering, even if they don't think D&D is worth the expense.

 

[skerritthegreen]

But I thought the logic behind their not going to GenCon was that people there wanted to play, not hear announcements. So they want to go to other cons...so they can have people play?

I don;t know that its only that, but I think the idea is to get more people to play. Origins has a long of minis/card/board game people that don't always hit Gen Con, so you bring them in. It's also large enough to still have lots of D&D players while still having the space to set up big events like the Open. I think the reason they are hitting some of the other smaller shows, like GaryCon is to get new people that might not be playing 5e. GaryCon for example has some really cool workshops about writing for the DMsguild site that the staff wouldn't have time for at a larger show.

 

[UnsounderGnome]

See I think that's the thing, WotC can't get a nice somewhat quiet space at Gen Con like they used to have when they were in the Sagamore ballroom, so now they have decided to stop coming. It really makes them look kind of bad when they have a little roped off area in Hall D, while Paizo is knocking it out of the park up in their old space in Sagamore. If WotC doesn't go, they can avoid that negative comparison.

 

[Herschel]

I am totally fine with them not going to Gen Con, but then again I don't plan going to Gen Con again in the near future. That convention (for me) is so much better when you can get a walking distance hotel and my enjoyment level is not high enough to justify the outlay.

I was considering going to Origins and, now that WotC has said they will be there, it has cemented my choice. I feel a little bad for the international folks, but I don't quite understand the "not worth going because it's not big enough" point of view. A convention is as good as the content you attend there, not necessarily the size (proven for myself when I attended Gen Con 2015).



Really? All the griping and horror stories I heard about Baldman Games' events at Gen Con 2015 made me glad I hadn't been able to snag a D&D Access Pass or whatever they call it I heard that there events ran terribly off schedule and the staff that were running the events were sub-par (not all of course).

Yeah, Baldman's running of things was pretty crappy my last couple of trips there.

I'm also not planning on GenCon again any time soon. Their archaic and downright garbage registration system really turns me off. If the hotel registration doesn't crash, you can bet event registration will, and on the off chance reg actually works, you still likely won't get anything due to their all-or-nothing queue system meant for a much smaller Con.

It's really a poorly run Con living off of name recognition rather than actually improving for the long term.

 

[Staffan]

I'm also rather amazed that they don't want to do some grand announcements for Magic: the Gathering, even if they don't think D&D is worth the expense.

They generally do the big Magic panels at PAX and San Diego Comic-Con.