Is It Time To Boycott Gen Con?

[Herschel]

I've been there a few times and outside of DDM, I never really signed up for much and what I did was late and kind of random. This year I decided I wanted to play some LFR and RPGA stuff as well as maybe a few organized board games too for/with my girlfriend.

So there I was Sunday morning/afternoon on the site and with my watch list open. Cable internet, newer laptop and IE were raring to go. 11:00 CDT hits and....crash! Luckily I think one of my VIG friends got us True Dungeon tickets in an alternate time slot which meant re-doing Thursday and Friday's afternoon/evening potential schedules, but we'll see. I finally was able to get back to my Watch List about 12:40 CDT.

So the 1:00 CDT event open was coming, I had a few open windows and the GF had one or two also and....a whole lot more nothing. Crashed every time we tried to select/order tickets. A friend of mine luckily got through and got me tickets for the few RPGA events along with his after numerous, numerous attempts. I finally had to walk away from the PC after a little more than an hour (over three from the 11:00 opening) while he was trying because I caught myself actually yelling "JUST LET ME BUY SOME TICKETS TO ANYTHING YOU STUPID !!!!!!!!" (sans abbreviations in real life). I left the house and ran some errands.

I was finally able to get some tickets to my cart around 4:30 but whenever I tried to check out it would crash again! It was some time after 10:00 pm when I was able to actually buy my first set of tickets, but a glitch had left tickets for three events in limbo that I got an e-mail about a few minutes later saying I should check my cart because they had been found. So I went back in and got those also.

I was so dissatisfied I was almost ready to eat my badge, cancel my hotel reservation and stay home. I hear last year was almost as bad. The pre-registration system is a joke. They obviously need to do more load testing, rent more servers, etc. to avboid this total clusterfrak of a process leaving customers frustrated. Obviously they still get enough people registering and they have no idea how many customers they lose because they simply do get fed up with the system.

I know I had a number of things I needed to get done around the house yesterday afternoon and was able to finish almost none because of trying to register for events. Needless to say, I wasn't the only unhappy person there.

A boycott would be a great way to show them it is not acceptible to be treated like that, but I know it's not realistic. Still, I really wish there was some way to make them get their crap together and deliver a decent service instead of the crashing cattle call they have.

 

[JediSoth]

I didn't have a problem with anything crashing. The server was slow and I had some page timeouts, but within 15 minutes or so of the opening of Pre-Registration, I had my wife and I signed up for all of the events we wanted (some 11 events total between the two of us).

Sure, they need to seriously look into fixing their server issues, but I seriously doubt enough people would be willing to boycott the convention to make a difference to Gen Con, LLC. You would be better off writing a concise, firm, yet polite letter or e-mail to them. You'll be taken more seriously. Every time I have written Peter Adkison with feedback about Gen Con he has written me back, even if I didn't actually offer any suggestions.

 

[Umbran]

The law of unintended consequences applies:

A boycott would be a great way to lighten the load on the servers, so they don't crash, and everyone not in the boycott gets better service.

But really, "boycott" doesn't communicate well. They don't necessarily know why you are withholding business unless you actively speak to them. That's THEM. Not us. EN World posts are not a good way to communicate your displeasure to the business.

Also, there may well be economic realities involved. It is easy to say, "they need to get more servers and bandwidth", but that costs money - if they are having massive but very short spikes in load, getting more servers may not be worth the money they cost. Maybe instead what they need is a better throttle on the load, or customers who don't sit at their keyboards waiting for the clock to strike the hour and all hit the site simultaneously...

 

[Herschel]

Yeah, as I said, a boycott isn't realistic, but the e-mail I sent probably isn't going to do anything either as they should have received scads of them after last year and the problem still persists. And JS, by "crash" I meant generically timed out or the infamous "page can not be displayed" error for which windows can find no solution. I also got dumped to a base screen a couple of times which would have worked, except that just went "thunk" when I tried to navigate from there also.

I was warned that I needed to sign up early to get in to events, but signing up early shouldn't be such a pain.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I gather you never experienced the joy of registration for Gencon in the early to mid 90s - let alone the 80s?

GenCon remains an exceptional value and the Best Four Days in Gaming. I'm not even sure that supposed trademark is even capable of registration as a trademark - because it really is MERELY descriptive of the event. It really is the best four days in gaming.

Peter Adkinson would have to do engage in exceptional Asshattery in order to persuade me to boycott Gencon. Even then, I'm not sure I might find it convenient to overlook such a transgression out of pure self-interest.

I appreciate that your experience was frustrating. I find hotel registration to be FAR more frustrating, personally - but - fair enough. Frustration in one part; frustration in another - doesn't reaslly matter, does it? It all adds up to stress and unhappiness concerning an event which is all about lack of stress, happiness, entertainment and tremendous excitement at the annual crown jewel of our hobby.

For all that, later this year when it's Thursday, August 5, 2010 at about 9:53 a.m. and the Convention centre is packed with expectant gamers and the doors on the main Exhibit Hall to the Dealer Room about to open a few minutes from then - remember that buzz of excitement, expectation and boyish thrill you are almost certain to feel at that moment in time. Freeze frame that emotion - if you can.

Then, upon reflection, with a boyish smile on your face, admit that you might have over-reacted just a little on your clarion call that we all boycott and forego that same moment in time, okay? They do the best that they can and overall - their system does work. Perhpas not as well as we might all prefer - but it works, just the same.

 

[Crothian]

Yes, support Origins!!

 

[Insight]

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?

 

[nedjer]

. . . and skip the opportunity to dress up in a ridiculous costume. I think not.

 

[noffham]

He is exaggerating. There are still quite a lot of events available and more will become open as people drop unwanted events and duplicate tickets gotten in the mad rush.

 

[Darrin Drader]

It's always sad to see technical limitations getting in the way of people having a good time. I know I've been on the receiving end of this enough times. Especially frustrating was the one time I could not get through to buy concert tickets and the event sold out before I could complete my transaction. Fortunately they added a second show, and I got good seats to that one, but it was irritating nonetheless.