I'm not saying anything.

GenCon, one of USA's biggest conventions, landed in Australia for the first time. Apparently boasting the four biggest days of gaming (Thursday 3rd to Sunday 6th of July), a couple of us on the Internode team decided we should check this claim out.

With a full four-day pass in hand, Kasinik headed in before me to get a full view.

If rolling a natural 20 is fun, this is the con for you. The trade hall had everything from RPG books, war-gaming terrain, anime DVDs, t-shirts, even an artist (Anthea, who makes particularly good character portraits). Movies (mostly anime) ran all day in the small theatre, plus celebrity appearances and seminars on everything from fantasy writing through extreme dungeon mastery (by Tracy Hickman) to the art of video games. Attendees, including cosplayers, swirled around the hall like hungry jackals. You haven't truly lived until you've seen a cosplayer dressed like Cloud playing Guitar Hero egged on by a stormtrooper.

With all this waiting for me I couldn't wait to get inside and check it out. The layout was pretty good with the Trade Hall being the first thing you walked into. Within walking in I was amazed at the amount of stalls. Sure it was no Supanova but they still had an excellent selection of goods and even stalls I haven't seen yet at a convention. Intensity was back and this time they had Star Wars Pod Racer! Oh yes, the arcade version with a bike-like pod device. Gametraders had a nice stall up offering a Guitar Hero comp but also having a Nintendo 64 with Mario Kart, as well as a few other machines.

Queensland Games and QANTM College were offering people an insight into the gaming industry showing off show reels and answering questions. The guys from AustralianGamer.com were there, mostly sitting on bean bags playing classic games. But they were always up for a chat with anyone that wandered by. However on talking to a few friends I was told the Wizards on the Coast booth was a must see. Wandering over there I found Dungeons and Dragons 4th Ed, Magic: the Gathering and a few other games being displayed. The guys there were running people through different games to teach people how to play. For about 30 minutes,they took you through, taught you how to play and gave you a bag of some things to get you started. Even if you were just having a look they had an amazing power to convince you to sit down and have a go. Unfortunately for my Human Fighter known as Kelric, he didn't last as long as I did.


Coffee from a Storm Trooper, Australian Gamer, Intensity
Upon leaving the Wizards booth they told me if I wanted to keep playing the other end of the hall had people of all ages and skill levels playing games. Wandering down there my jaw dropped. Rows and rows of tables and people all in different areas playing various games. They even had a board game section. A couple of local businesses and Crown & Andrews had set up a big Jenga game! Kasinik obviously wasn't as noobish as me at the tabletop games and jumped right in.

The real attraction, the games, took up two thirds of the hall. War games (Warhammer 40k), collectable card games (Magic the Gathering, YuGiOh!, Pokémon TCG, WoW TCG, etc), roleplaying (D&D 3.5 and 4th edition, Shadowrun, and plenty more) and a continuous LAN party ran all day. The freeform LARPers mostly lurked in the upstairs rooms, costumes and all. The fight choreographer from Star Wars was giving training sessions in stunt or fantasy fighting - this turned out to be one of my favourite activities. The con had sessions running from 8am until around midnight – some didn't start until 9pm. There was never a lack of games to join.

The hardest part was deciding which events to attend. Make sure you get in early – the best events were booked out in advance, some before the con started. Plenty of sessions were run when sufficient people turned up, so if you are interested in something in particular you can always ask around when the mood strikes.

While checking out some of the LAN action there was apparently there was different tournaments held on the different days - DotA, CS:S and TF2 being the three played. While they had a good selection of competitive games most of these were only run on one day, with a two-day CS:S comp over the weekend. I would have liked to see the option to play the other games on the weekend as some of us have work and uni to do during the week. The comps they had set up were nice, however when I saw it there wasn't too many people who brought their own PC.

The Cosplayers were out in force and some of the costumes looked amazing! With Cosplay events on each day it was hard to actually get to a spot without seeing someone in costume. I actually ran into one of my favourite Tekken characters, Lili, and had to get a photo with her. It is the atmosphere of a convention that draws me back. People are very friendly and don't mind posing for a photo if you ask them. Even talking to some of the people running the booths were welcome to a chat about your favourite show without trying to sell you something.


Tabletop gaming, the PC side of things, more tabletop
The celebrity listing wasn't as Big Name as some of the other conventions I've been too. Namely I had my heart set on a couple of Battlestar boys who had to pull out, however my favourite pilot Wash from Firefly, aka Alan Tudyk, stepped in for the misplaced space boys. Giving a hilariously, and very "Alan Tudyk" seminar, he answered anyone's questions and was more than happy to get photos and signatures from his stall. While this usually comes with a fee, he was such a natural entertainer you didn't really care about the money.

While I think one of the major problems of the event was not enough marketing, Kasinik has a different opinion.

Gencon lacks the glitz of events such as E3, but makes up for with a refreshing lack of hype and distinctly less marketing. While most of the organisers are volunteers, it was a professionally run event, obviously using Gencon's 40 years of experience. Few conferences have a continuously updated electronic errata board for the dozens of sessions, seminars, and events being run.

With a lack of marketing I think people only knew about this if they were really interested or by word of mouth. I found some of the things hard to find and some of the seminar info only being found on a piece of paper with times right where they should be (which happened to be a big black throw up wall). Something more about seminars in here would have been nice. It also didn't help I didn't get a program of the event times and map until I was leaving. They did put up some of the celebrity times up on the 'net but a little bit more communication from the organisers to the internet and possibly the floor could have helped my experience a lot more.

My only other problem and it seems a few others agree with me, is that being a 'gaming convention' I was quite surprised about the lack of video games about. Sure the PC and BYOC sections where there but who would want to leave their PC while checking out seminars or buying merchandise? This idea was tried and failed at Supanova. However GenCon staff were more present and, I assume, could check on your equipment if you asked them. But apart from that there was one stall with PC gear and Intensity. EB Games was a no show (apparently they have a contract with Supanova), JB HI-FI wasn't around and Gametraders only had stickers and play booths. I would have liked to see some more game stalls for cheap games and fan merchandise.


Wash! (Alan Tudyk), learning how to use a light saber, Giant Jenga!
Last thoughts on the convention from Kasinik:

It's hard not to compare Gencon Australia with the much larger Gencon, but the Oz event was very impressive for a first time event. I expect the few rough edges will be smoothed out by next year's event. See you there.

I agree, even with its small flaws I quite enjoyed GenConOz. While it still has some issues to work out, I found they had the right idea. Showing people the games and then offering more places to play them was fantastic! I must thank all the volunteers that showed me games. If I didn't have other commitments I would have been there all day, every day, playing whatever I could. I hope the organisers take into consideration the things that went well and the things they didn't and that GenCon comes back to Australia even better. Hopefully some of the other states would get to experience this wonderful event in the future as well, but if not try and make the trip it will be worth your roll... I mean while.

(To see more of TheMeadow's photos, check out the File Library!)