What a wild four days.

I think I actually managed to spend more time going from booth to booth this year than I did last. Happily I managed to avoid the retailers at the end of the hall and the temptations of their discount CCG and CMG offers. Last year I spent a large amount of money on Vs. cards and I am happy to report that I avoided the siren song of cheap Heralds of Galactus boosters this year :-)

The videos appear to have been a success even with my inability to edit them. I’ll be expanding the video coverage of the show next year and hope to actually post video from all the booths I visit as well as gaming and general video. That may require a Mac laptop as I am getting quite tired of how badly Windows runs when I am processing video and just how bad the video and audio editing tools are under Windows. I have several general videos that I will be assembling when I get home and posting them to the site. Nothing too exciting (other than the AE-WWII/Pulp City crossover video) but an interesting look at the show and the crowds.

Despite being tired for almost the entire show (my own fault for staying up late :-) I had a lot of fun. It was great to meet up with some of the folks that post to the site including Redstripe, Steeldragon, LarkinVain, the “internet hard-men” from Frothers and others. It was also good to meet up with Adam, Mike, Bryan, Matt and Dan. My apologies if I have forgotten anyone :-) Special thanks to Dan Weber for bringing me the GW Apocalypse backback I purchased from Brookhurst Hobbies. Not only did it save me shipping but the backpack turned into a life saver as it had all sorts of pockets and space that my existing backpack didn’t making it a lot easier to work the show.

It was great being able to talk to all the manufacturers on the trade floor and I’d like to extend thanks to everyone who made time to answer questions or do video interviews and demos. I’d like to extend a special thanks to everyone at Kraken Editions, Randall and David from Catalyst Game Labs, Eric from Wyrd Miniatures, Rich and the team from Rattrap Productions, Jeremy from Fantasy Flight Games and especially Bobby from Privateer Press who went above and beyond to get me access to the booth (including getting more photos of their diorama) and get goodies for the GenCon Swag giveaway.

Speaking of which, the GenCon Swag Giveaway should be great this year as I managed to get minis and swag from Privateer Press, Darkson Designs, Fantasy Flight Games, Catalyst Game Labs, Fantization Miniatures, ZombieSmith and others. The two giveaway bags should have all sorts of loot including the LE Monsterpocalypse figure, some Quar minis, the GenCon Indy miniature and even some Magic decks. So if you didn’t make it to GenCon 2008 you can still get some goodies from the event. I’ll be posting the contest entry form later this week.

The show this year appeared to be busier than last. Certainly the first two days were far busier than 2007 and most of the exhibitors I talked to were quite happy with the attendance and sales. There was some fear that the economic downturn would effect the show but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Certainly the show was filled with happy and excited gamers who had an abundance of cool figures and games to check out.

GenCon is big from a tabletop gamers perspective but it has a lot more to offer from RPGs, board games, electronic games, CMGs, CCGs and a plethora of assorted books, t-shirts and accessories. The size of some portions of the industry represented at GenCon are sometimes staggering. When I was talking to one of the mini manufacturers on the floor he discussed the number of figures they produce and casually said “which is a lot but we’re not as big as Wizards”. When I was talking with the folks from Wizards the D&D brand manager said “which is a lot of units but its not anything as large as something McFarlane releases”. GenCon covers a wide range of companies with scales of economy that cover a huge range. From small gaming companies like Darkson Designs, to Wizards, Hasbro and then to companies even larger. Everyone comes to GenCon, aside from GW who don’t seem to want to partake in the fun, and it is this wide scope that really makes the show a great experience.

Well that and getting to meet other gamers. Even if it is over a meal at White Castle.

Seriously, sorry about that. Lesson learned :-) Rest assured that next year the TGN event will be on site and in the GenCon calendar so you can all plan around it.

Update: Just to prove that they are becoming one of the worst airlines ever, United managed to lose my luggage on my way home as well. So they are 0 for 2 in managing to deliver a single piece of luggage to its destination.