Good to see the turnout this year was MUCH better than last.
I enjoyed the show overall.
Good to see the turnout this year was MUCH better than last.
I enjoyed the show overall.
Yeah, it was nice to see a good crowd at the expo. The tournaments were really well attended, and I sold a lot of games. Few seemed to be interested in books, though, which I thought was a little odd considering the educational slant of the show.
Overall, I had a great time. It was cool to see Flack, Pacecar, and Earl (among others).
Last edited by 8bitgamer; 04-11-2009 at 10:39 PM.
I don't think Flack's books did all that well, and maybe neither did Earl's DVDs. I think the people attending the show were college age teens to early 20s, and weren't all that interested in the history of games. They clustered around the Best Buy booth's modern games and the assorted game tournaments. It was us old farts that were buying the books and DVDs, those of us who actually lived through gaming history.
I had a lot of fun, but I feel really wiped out after driving to Oklahoma City and back in one day, especially in thunderstorms on the way back. Won't have any problem falling asleep tonight!
I sold six books in all, two copies of Commodork and four copies of Invading Spaces.
The show was much improved over last year's. I think it may some day be a fairly big show for game developers. There were only three people there selling games: PDF, 98Pacecar, and Brett Weiss, so the focus wasn't really on buying or selling games.
There was a lot of diversity in the tables, so I don't think anyone liked everything, but almost everyone liked something.
I think that's a fairly safe assumption.
There was actually some fairly nifty stuff at some of the booths. PDF had a Famicom set up. It was the first time I've actually had hands-on with one. Not that they are overly rare, but I just never had a reason to get one. Pretty neat!
I moved a heap of games, including very nearly my entire NES collection, and a decent chunk of 2600 and 5200 stuff. Only sold about two copies of each DVD or DVD set though. I had a few tech issues, which were exacerbated by the fact that I got there so late that I started setting up 10 minutes prior to the show - I lost the first hour and a half or so to getting my display set up, and didn't have anything set out to sell yet (partially because if I was selling and setting up at the same time, I doubt I would've been at my best doing either one).
Huge thanks to SteveW for being my right-hand-man on very short notice - my usual sidekick was absent for this one, and while I kept on trying to tell myself that I could swing a solo display just this once...I couldn't. I almost had to bring my now-highly-mobile toddler with me too, though he went to stay with his aunt and uncle and their daughter for Friday night and Saturday instead. Thank goodness: I really got to missing him around lunchtime, because Saturday is our day to just goof off and bum around together, but I can't imagine having to do all the setup and watch him at the same time, never mind him having to make it through the whole show.
There is indeed an educational slant to OEGE, but it's not one that's focused on history, which hit both Brett and myself this year. And that's not saying anything bad about OCCC's computer arts program - the history of video games just isn't something that's a part of very many game design programs. I have my own opinions on whether or not that needs to change - not least of which is making sure that some budding game designer's totally new and fresh idea isn't accidentally "borrowed" from something that was on the VCS before they were born - but I'm also not privy to the logistics of these courses in a college setting. I know that Bill Kunkel and Michael Thomasson have both taught such courses, so they'd be the ones to ask. (And not every younger attendee was disinterested either - dstone for one bought a pretty good pile of games from me, and numerous others were transfixed by the two consoles I brought.)
One of my issues was the testy death, on the show floor, of one of the color TVs I've been using for years for these get-togethers. This one has accompanied me since the 2003 OKGE (OVGE) show, so I felt a little bit betrayed by my equipment (especially since it would've been showing the demo loop of the DVDs I was selling to the side of my booth where all the merchandise was - that might just have made a difference). I also hadn't done any endurance testing on my Famicom, and hadn't used its monitor in some time either; both of them got glitchier and glitchier as the day went on, and repeatedly needed to be powered down and back up. But both drew quite a crowd. I set up one of my video cameras with an extremely wide-angle lens pointing up at where anyone playing the Odyssey would be standing, and started recording anytime someone showed up and had a go. I captured some extremely humorous responses and I'll edit together a montage at some point; it may be ancient history, but people still think it's fun nearly four decades later.
This reminded me a lot of the 2003 OKGE - maybe not gangbusters business, but a lot of conversations and a lot of "OMG, I remember playing this way back when!" from parents and older-than-20-something passers-by. Since I was flying solo so much of this year's show, I honestly didn't make it to many of the booths: Brett Weiss came to my booth to sell me a copy of his book. (Hey, he delivers!) I also didn't make it to any of the presentations either. I kinda regret that, but I had my own little corner of the room to run.
Overall, a much better show this year, but curiously that didn't translate to better sales. Then again, it's hard to get a handle on how much stuff folks in the hobby, or on the fringes of the hobby, are buying right now. I did better than break even on the trip, however, so I'm not writing it off as a loss.
By the way, if anybody's interested, strangely enough I have plentiful copies of PDF Level 2, PDF 1, CGE 2K7 and the PDF two-in-one on hand here!