One last thing, I wanted to comment on the Vanguard awards. The Vanguard awards is pretty much a catch-all category, which according to Pete Panzeri (chairman of the Academy) represents “‘the cutting edge’ of new design in the gaming industry”. I have not been able to locate who was in the category besides Harpoon 3 and Pieces of Eight so I was wondering for those of you who attended what else was there in the category? It’s hard to believe that a game that has been around for years represents “the cutting edge” of new design.

For a convention that is about gaming isn’t it a little strange that after 33 years they still don’t acknowledge computer gaming?

Yea, but that same money, used over the internet, will make thousands fold more people aware of your product. If we could charge more for the games there would be more money for such non sales oriented marketing. But you know how that goes. Game prices are the same now (or less!) than they were in the 1980′s. And the computer games market is shrinking — not growing.

In 2003 we were told attendance was 12,000. In 2004 we were told attendance was “record breaking”, yet we could clearly see that there were far fewer people in the exhibit hall. I am told that it has gone down each year by our friends that still exhibit. Now, what percentage of that 12,000 was computer gamers? Even if it was 20% (and I believe that it was not even half of that) you are only reaching 2400 people. In the grand scheme of things a very expensive way to reach a portion of your market.

“John Tiller has his own Con…”

Do you know the attendance figures?

Consider your mention of AATF. So far there are positive reviews at Wargamer, Armchair General, PC Gameplay (Belgium print mag), Gaming Nexus, Out of Eight, PC Gamer, Line of Departure, and of course Flash of Steel. But yeah, you wouldn’t know that if you hit up the “ranking” sites.

Really what we need is Russell Carroll of GameTunnel to start a ranking site aimed solely at independent and small press titles. It’s a shame that the services we have now truly don’t provide the service they’re supposed to.

Origins used to have computer game awards. Alpha Centauri and Baldur’s Gate won the last ones in 1999. And this year Harpoon 3 got a Vanguard Award. Mind you, Origins used to have a lot more of everything since it was, as you note, much bigger. I regret not having seen it then.

As Dave said, this isn’t necessarily about selling so much as making people aware of your product. Most of the wargame developers aren’t going to be seen as E3 and, as you well know, getting anybody in the mainstream computer game media to take mature wargaming seriously is almost a losing proposition at this point. (Gamerankings lists five reviews for ProSim’s Raging Tiger and zero for AATF, though it’s a much superior game.) As the wargaming audience shrinks, it becomes more and more like the boardgaming market, relying on word of mouth and a few focused websites. John Tiller has his own Con, and that does nothing to expand the HPS market beyond people who care enough to go play Tiller games in the first place.

Matrix did sell out their stock of UFO: Extraterrestrials, though. And a couple of others. Some didn’t sell at all.

I’ve been following the discussion here. For the record, Shrapnel attended Origins in 2003 and again in 2004, when we published the boardgame Mark H. Walker’s Lock ‘n Load: Forgotten Heroes Vietnam and the expanison the next year. Of course we had all of our computer games there including ProSim’s Titles and the rest of our wargames and
the ever-popular Space Empires IV.

The truth is, we sold more boardgames (1 title) than computer games (around 16 titles, I believe at that time). And even then, not enough games were sold to make it profitable (not even break even). Each year the costs went up and when companies like Wizards of the Coast and Upper Deck stopped contributing with huge booths and sponsorships, the prices went up even more. We have to answer to our developers and our investors and spending money that doesn’t make money is just not a smart business decision.

Origins is a boardgame convention, everything they do is about boardgames, rpgs, etc. They don’t even have award categories for computer games and they sure didn’t seem interested in supporting the computer game companies that were there when we attended.

Of course back then Origins was HUGE. Our first year, the whole space, with the possible exception of 1 or 2 no shows, was taken with booths. No gaming areas, no arena, no miniatures painting… There were at least twice as many booths as this year. Also, the Sponsers were the big companies, like Wizards of the Coast. The companies that could really pull gamers to the convention. You couldn’t even walk in the isles. It was a unique experience back then.

While we had a great time meeting gaming fans, seeing our developers, and watching the show unfold, it was obvious that, unless you had boardgames, you only reached a very small part of the Origins faithful. The press was even virtually non-existent. So, combine 1) the lack of interest in computer gaming, 2) the convention becoming more expensive as the attendance shrunk, and 3) our lack of current boardgame products and it just doesn’t make sense for us.

Of course next year, we will have two new boardgames, so we will reevaluate our stance at that time.

Tim Brooks
President
Shrapnel Games, Inc.

I think a lot of businesses miss the boat here. You can’t figure that everywhere you go you’re going to be putting boxes in people’s hands. You also have to get your name and your products in front of folks just so they are aware of you. That includes the guy who walks by your booth and never says a word to you all the way to the guy who stops and talks with you for an hour and then buys five games.

You sound really defeatist on this issue because it seems you’re only interested in the direct sale at the moment you have someone in the booth. That’s just gravy. The real reason to be there is so more folks find out about your games. This is why the scaling down of E3 seems so ridiculous. Publishers had mainstream press AND retail in a frenzy over videogames for about a week in past years. With this new event, it’s like it’s hardly even happening.

Anyway, I find it difficult to believe we’re at a point in time where there’s no benefit in meeting people in person and finding new customers only happens on the Internet. Once again, not everyone is so tuned in that they know every indie game company out there… and getting face to face with people at a con seems like a good way to let them know you’re around.