GenCon is upon us, and while not as popular as the ComicCons or E3s of the convention circuit, it is one of the biggest gaming conventions around. I've been going to this Con for nearly 15 years now, and I've had many many experiences there, but I know that everybody's GenCon experience is different. I'd like to take this article to share some of mine.
My first one was when I was 15. My best friend's dad took us to GenCon with him for the day when it was up in Milwaukee. We spent the day wandering the booths in the hall, checking out the Magic booths, and playing those silly dice games where if you roll all 6's or all 1's, you get a high priced card. We even spent a couple hours playing in a sealed tournament at a booth, which is just unheard of these days. We went home at the end of the day thinking that was everything the Con was. We were so, so wrong.
When I was older and had the money, I decided I wanted to stay the entire four days, so I got a hotel room that ended up being 30 minutes away (but fortunately a short bus ride) from the center. I was only 19 at the time, which raised eyebrows at the hotel and almost had them not allow us to stay there, but they gave in since they didn't want to send some teenagers away without a room in an overbooked city. See, the housing situation in Milwaukee was pretty bad, and getting hotel rooms there was extremely hard. This was one of the major reasons that they moved to Indianapolis, but that's a bit of another story there.
Eventually I started really discovering what was going on at GenCon. It's not just about the hall, there's a lot of other stuff going on here. Over the years I've been part of several tournaments for different games (Mage Knight, Warmachine). I've gotten sneak peaks of upcoming titles before they were even announced to be coming to consoles (Dragon Age). I've gotten to playtest upcoming expansions and whole new game concepts with the developers (Killer Bunnies, Tomb, Mage Knight Dungeons) and explored dungeons and felled fantastic creatures by playing tabletop shuffleboard (True Dungeon).
There's another part to GenCon that is what makes it so great. It's the people. I've made so many friends at this convention, I've lost track of their real names entirely. And they've forgotten mine, but I'm surprised every year to have somebody shout out "Video!" to grab my attention. These lasting friendships and memories are going to be with me forever.
Keep with me this week while I post stories about my time at GenCon, and some tips from somebody who's been through the GenCon experience more than a few times. If I somehow attract some readers to this, post your own stories in the comments and share your experiences. Everybody experiences GenCon differently, and I'd love to hear yours.
Final note, I'm planning on spending quite a bit of time in the hall this year checking out the new games and writing up some mini reviews about them. If you'd like to make sure I stop by and maybe give you some free publicity (and give me some content to write), drop me a line at videogamingat30(at)gmail.com. I'm looking for a slew of new table top games to play.
