No WotC Booth at GenCon

[Morrus]

It's been mentioned a few times recently that WotC doesn't have a booth this year. When ICv2 asked why, they replied "As we continue to focus on creating great play experiences, Wizards has collaborated with GenCon to create a strategy for this year's show that provides great branded play experiences for our players and fans." The WotC booth tends to be a major - and enormous - fixture at Gen Con, so it will be missed this year.

 

[Greatwyrm]

I can understand wanting to scale back, since there's really nothing new to sell in D&D. But you'd think they'd still want to do something with the board games or classic reprints. Or maybe a big push with Magic, since that's where most of the money seems to be made.

 

[MarkB]

The current Legends & Lore article includes some explanation of why they're structuring their GenCon presence this way.

 

[MerricB]

From a month ago from Mike Mearls on twitter:
"We're basically recreating our PAX presence, so the "booth" is in our play area."

 

[Jester David]

The WotC booth has always been a giant waste of space. This huge booth that is mostly empty. You ould go there to look at products but not buy. Last year it was really the Neverwinter booth.
So makes sense. With nothing to sell you don't need a booth. And WotC doesn't handle product or direct sales (due to Hasbro restrictions).

It'd serve more of a purpose if the staff actually hung around the booth and engaged the fans. Sat around there, signing books, talking D&D, and engaging with the community.

 

[RangerWickett]

Hey, back in the day it was a HUGE area where you could demo games and then play a little gameshow to win prizes, from dinky (dice if you demoed 1 game) to amazing (I got an Axis & Allies set after demoing 11 games once). It was really a Hasbro booth. I guess that wasn't profitable? It was back in 2005.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I know that one of the stated goals for the RPGA this year is that they don't want to keep the same players in their gaming area all weekend like they have in previous years. They are purposefully running only 2 events this year so that people will come, play those 2 events and then leave to free up space for people who haven't yet got a chance to play.

Their goal is to get as many individual players to have played at least one event at their booth as possible.

 

[Morrus]

Seems reasonable. I guess next year will be the year of D&D Next. This year is the year of Star Wars Edge of the Empire, 13th Age, and Numera.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Seems reasonable. I guess next year will be the year of D&D Next. This year is the year of Star Wars Edge of the Empire, 13th Age, and Numera.

This is definitely the way it comes across to me. It sounds like they are in a holding pattern where D&D Next isn't ready to come out yet and likely won't be until at least GenCon next year. So, they don't want to hype it up too much when it isn't ready yet and they don't have much information to share.

However, given they have plans to release a bunch of Sundering adventures to prepare the Forgotten Realms for the D&D Next change coming out over the next couple of months, we can be rest assured that the money they saved from not having a big booth this year will be spent in order to have an extra big booth next year.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

You know, I've always felt like it was weird to be playing D&D in one room, but the designers and developers were down in the booth in the other room. It seems much more natural to have them all in the same place -- so if they're really going to be in the big room with the D&D play, I'm all for the change. Unlike most of the folks at the show, they're not the primary vendor for their products, anyway.

-rg