Is It Time To Boycott Gen Con?

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I wish I could be mad at GenCon over pre-registration! At least you get to go. As long as GenCon is in late July or early August and I continue to work for my current company, I will never get to go again. So myself, all of us without the money to go, and those too far away to reasonably afford the journey are jealous that you got to spend a whole day screaming at the pre-registration site.

 

[Piratecat]

The unofficial EN World / Circvs Maximvs games are so much fun that I haven't played an "official" game in about six years. It's good to know there are fallbacks!

 

[beldar1215]

I had a few minor issues, but actually this year was the best year I've had so far. I got all but one event that I wanted. It took me about 15 mins to get the event to my cart and a couple of tries to checkout. I was actually expecting much worse. The last two times I went through the process. it was much worse.

Beldar

 

[Relique du Madde]

You obviously never tried ordering tickets for a major high demand event at Ticket Master before. What you described happens ALL THE TIME EVERYWHERE.

Hell according to your logic ENWORLD should have been boycotted because the server overloaded way back during the 4e announcement.

 

[Wycen]

Is It Time To Boycott Gen Con?

No.

 

[Herschel]

Should I take the foregoing to mean that, if I haven't signed up for GenCon already, that I might as well give up because there won't be any events left? Or is the OP exaggerating the problem?

There are a lot of events, but the RPGA was hit hard and True Dungeon is long gone, as well as many time slots for popular board games (including the new Ravenloft Boardgame, although I'm sure there will be short demos with lines at the WotC booth.

If you play 3.5 or Pathfinder, for example, there are scads of open games but not much left for 1E or 2E (although not many offerings there to begin with).

There's also a ton of open gaming where people just meet and play games but that's something to line up in other places/ways or just wander and find. This year I wanted to try things I haven't done before, which is the stuff that gets grabbed early.

The boycott thing was a bit tongue-in-cheek (which gets lost in text) but couldn't think of a better term to use at the time and used it as a 'headline'. I've had fun in the past without doing certain things, but why keep going if you can't actually do some of the things you really want to.

 

[nedjer]

But seriously . . . sell your granny, pawn the XBox, do what it takes.

Events like major Cons and concerts are so often 'once in lifetimes'.

The journey, the 'how can they look like that if they were made today?' sandwiches, the bathroom queues, the 'not as good as they should be' costumes, making an idiot of yourself in front of your all time hero, . . . all part of the entertainment.

 

[Riley]

I'm boycotting Gen Con until they move it back to Milwaukee. It was awfully nice when I could just walk a few blocks from my home to the convention.

Of course, now that I've moved, I guess I'm not going back until they move it to Minnesota.

But then, I guess that if it's just me, it's not really much of a boycott, is it? - and the only one that I'm hurting is myself.

Hmmm. Maybe I should go to Gen Con again one of these years.

 

[JediSoth]

I'm boycotting Gen Con until they move it back to Milwaukee. It was awfully nice when I could just walk a few blocks from my home to the convention.

Of course, now that I've moved, I guess I'm not going back until they move it to Minnesota.

But then, I guess that if it's just me, it's not really much of a boycott, is it? - and the only one that I'm hurting is myself.

Hmmm. Maybe I should go to Gen Con again one of these years.

You really should. Indianapolis is a very convention-friendly city and it's only going to improve as the Convention Center expands. The area of the city where the Convention Center is located is fairly clean and safe (as far as the center of a state capitol goes). The weather can be a bit hot and humid in August, but you don't really need to go outside much anyway.

 

[Herschel]

Sorry but DT Indy, while very pretty, smells terrible. There's just various stenches around the area usally reserved for worse neighborhoods near sewage treatment plants. (Funny enough, right in front of Hooters is usually one of the worst spots) Clean is a relative term, but just because the rotting fish is under the couch while the rest of the room is dusted doesn't give one the impression of 'clean'.

The great thing about DT Indy is there are plenty of sushi restaurants and other good stuff if you want non-traditional gamer food. And a Chic-fil-et (?) at the mall for decent fast food.