I stopped by Dundracon for an hour or two today, mostly to see what was up and pick up receipts from our dealer tables. I'm taking a break from conventions and trade shows this year, sending employees in my place. Everything seemed much like it was last year, with attendance high and the sales nearly identical. The last several conventions I've gone to have seen RPG sales down to nothing so it was nice to see role playing games still have value to Dundracon attendees.
I heard that many of the large game companies are reigning themselves in this year, skipping regional conventions like KublaCon. Some have fallen by the wayside since last year, like Tablestar Games in Berkeley. Mongoose was on-fire last year at Kublacon with their Battlefield Evolution game, which has been canceled since, along with the Babylon 5 miniature game that was canceled last month. May is also the eve of D&D 4th edition, so many RPG companies won't be attending as well. If we were playing Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, 2008 would be your "dead level" if you were an RPG publisher. Soldier on until you get your cool feat in 2009.
We're also waiting to hear a big Hero Games announcement, likely to be a Hero Online MMORPG and something else, like a 6th edition. Hero Games is just about dead in our store, with a copy or two of each new book sold before we stop re-ordering (like RIFTS). I'm not sure a new edition will breath life into it for us, but it can't hurt.
Our next convention is Conquest Sacramento, March 28-30th. I'll be sending Michael to that one too.
Technically, the Babylon 5 miniature game (called 'A Call to Arms' or 'ACTA') isn't canceled, just the miniatures. Of course, for many of the players that's the same thing, as they don't see Mongoose's move to cardboard counters as a viable alternative to metal miniatures.
ReplyDeleteGood to see that BDG was at DDC32, but we didn't see a sign/banner/poster to announce your presence!
ReplyDeleteThe banner was up. It was across one of our three tables.
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