August 24, 2005: Gen Con Report

Gen Con Indy was the most exhausting experience in my year so far, and my feet are very glad it is over. During the next month or two, Warehouse 23 will be adding a large number of new (and new to us) products. I have a notepad that is filled cover to cover with notes, but I've included the highlights below:

Adventure Retail represented us at the show, sold lots of our products, and offered their own unique brand of fun. Every time I stopped by the booth they were swamped, and I want to thank everyone who supported us. More thanks to those who recognized the SJ Games logo on my shirt and stopped to chat.

Shadlyn's Best Display Award goes to Wizards of the Coast for the Axis and Allies Miniatures display. There is nothing quite like playing a wargame on the hood of a jeep.

Shadlyn's Best Booth Award goes to Fantasy Flight Games. Not as big as the Wizards of the Coast booth, but well laid out, attractive, and filled with gorgeous, high-quality games. Even better, they had comfortable chairs set up around all of their tables, letting me rest me aching feet while I watched a demo. I visited them at the end of every day! The games I liked best were Arkham Horror and the upcoming World of Warcraft Board Game.

The best moment of the show for me, personally, was getting to meet Ron Glass (most recently Shepherd Book of Firefly/Serenity fame). While I only spoke to him briefly, he was funny and charming. Every time I walked by the booth where he was giving autographs he was smiling and laughing. His presence definitely helped to boost the pre-release sales of the Serenity RPG being offered at the Sovereign Press booth.

As always, it was a pleasure meeting with John and Michelle Nephew, of Atlas Games. I also had the opportunity to meet face to face with our Sales Manager, Ross Jepson (he's based out of Canada). We had some great discussions about *fnord* and hopefully you'll be seeing even more improvements to our site and our service before the end of the year.

Finally, the product that most caught my eye was the Paranoia Card Game from Mongoose Publishing. I never got to play it. In fact, I never really got close enough to watch it played. Why? Because every time I walked by the demo table it was absolutely packed with giggling players and observers. This tells me very little about the game - only that it's probably very good!
-- Shadlyn, Warehouse 23 Manager