I stopped going to Gen Con a few years back. I liked going to Gen Con when I lived in Indiana but now...not so much. Everytime I have been, it was for business and I did well cash wise. But afte I became a PDF publisher and focused on POD, I never really felt the need to sell my product in the traditional fashion of print 2,000 copies pay for everthing up front, ship it to the con, hope to sell them all, then ship back the remaining. Most likely after everything was said and done, you would make enough money to break even, if you were lucky. Why the hell would I do that? That sounds like a bad business idea to me.
Plus with only a little over 25,000 people showing up (San Diego Comic Con had 125,000, WizardWorld Chicago had 60,000), it never seemed worth the cost to go there. While this will be a big date with the release of Paizo's Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, it is not enough to draw me out to Indianapolis in August. Some company I know swear by going to it and say it is there biggest event all year where they make most of their money. I say it is scary to depend on one convention to make most of your money. God forbid something bad happens like your products don't make it their for some reason. So fo all you that are going enjoy your time. I will be at home saving that money to purchase my new house. Talk to you later...
Going to Gen Con is not JUST about sales. It has always bothered me to see companies, big or small, thinking in only these terms. Gen Con is THE event of our industry, and to be absent and invisible from it is, well, stupid. Yes, for folks like you and me that do everything online it has limited benefits, but it cannot be surpased in terms of fan-approachability and industry connectivity. It is also the place to see what's going on in the world of gaming, what to watch out for, what to look for, what to avoid. The intangible benefits of Gen Con CANNOT be overlooked, and I fear way too many people producing games do that.
ReplyDeleteSee I really disagree with that. Before the internet, Gen Con was the place to be. But now I can create and connect to fans via the interent better then Gen Con, for the reason, not every person who is a gamer is able to attend Gen Con. On pure marketing terms you will get 1% to 3% of Gen Con attendees interested in your product (250 to 750 people) then out of that may 10% actually purchase (25 to 75 sales). Is the cost of the trip really worth those sales? You tell me...
ReplyDeleteAgain, I don't look at Gen Con purely in terms of sales. Heck, I've never sold anything at Gen Con; I've attended twice repping the podcast mostly, but yes, I feel I have gotten my trip's worth in the face-to-face connections I have made there.
ReplyDeleteAs for sales, ask some of the self-published guys that go and sell 50 copies of their games if that wasn't worth it.
It's too easy to be faceless due to the internet. I like Gen Con's ability to give us a face-to-face space.
I have to agree with Daniel on this one; it's the networking that's worth it's weight in GOLD at Gencon... :D
ReplyDeleteNot only is GenCon invaluable for the networking (my print partnership deal, for example, stemmed out of GenCon networking), but also the fact that the attendees (30K last year) represent the "alpha gamers" of their local areas -- exactly the sort of product-evangelists you need, going back home and talking about the stuff they saw that got them excited. Each GenCon sale represents another 2 to 3 sales back in the attendee's home town.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, they're exactly the sort of rabid, dedicated "True Fans" that Kevin Kelly talked about in his "1000 True Fans" marketing article.