As I write this, the Exhibit Hall at the Columbus Convention Center is being dismantled, the vendors are packing up their stuff, and the gamers are probably finishing a last few games. Origins 2009 is over. It always seems to pass so quickly. Sadly, tomorrow morning I’ll be getting up and going to work as usual. No more fun and games.
You can definitely see the impact of the economy on the gaming industry as you walk around Origins. The lines I saw at the registration desk and event ticketing were less than half of what I’ve seen at the same time in past years. The exhibit hall (or “vendor room” had huge walkways, several tables to sit down in, and one or two empty booths. It felt almost desolate compared to a few years ago.
In the miniatures hall and the board game hall, there were huge numbers of empty tables no matter what time or day you were there. Very few of the games I played were full, and getting event tickets was eerily easy. I had no problem getting tickets to any game I wanted in on, and only one or two games had to turn away those with generic tickets. In some ways, it was nice. In others, it made me wonder if there will even be an Origins in a few years if things keep going like this.
This year I took part in a couple of seminars and several game events. My schedule included all of the following:
- Munchkin Quest – run by Amorphous Blob Games
- The Rules of Writing – a seminar by author Michael A. Stackpole
- Battlestations Fleet Action – run by Gorilla Games
- Bootlegger – run by Rogue Judges
- Stargate Silent Scream
- Code War – run by Goodtime Games
- Self Publishing Crash Course – a seminar focused on self-publishing your own games
- Battlestar Galactica The Board Game – run by Fantasy Flight Games
- Infernal Contraption – run by Rogue Judges
I’ll write more about each of these events in separate posts, to make it easier for readers to find the titles they might be interested in.
The Origins Game Auction
The auction at Origins seemed rather sparsely attended compared to five or six years ago. I blame that on three separate things.
- Ohio law changed a few years ago to require the presence of a licensed auctioneer at events like the Origins game auction.
- The company running the Origins game auction changed in the last several years.
- The economy has taken a downturn in the past couple of years.
The most significant of the above events to me is the change in auction management. The group running the auction in 2001 knew a lot about hobby games. They knew who designed them, who published them, what they were like to play, and what their approximate value was. They also took great care to share this in-depth knowledge with the auction audience. This made the auction more than just a “buy and sell” affair. It was actually quite an education in gaming history and economics. The group running the auction today may know a lot about games, but not much of that is shared during the auction from what I saw. This makes it a fairly bland event.
The requirement to have an “actual” auctioneer at the event introduces the familiar “auctioneer chatter” into the event. Personally, I’ve never liked the sound of an auctioneer prattling on and find it irritating and hard to follow. Even if there were some games I wanted to bid on, I wouldn’t sit there very long because I’d have to listen to that.
As for the economy, there isn’t much I need to say about that. In bad economic times like these, the prices will naturally be down compared to years when they’re better.
Conclusion
Don’t get me wrong. I love going to Origins and always have a good time. It’s great to be able to sit down and actually play games you’ve only read about, learn new things from people in the industry, and spend a little time away from home with other gamers. (Though Origins is only minutes from where I live, I don’t go into the downtown area very often so it’s like a mini-vacation where I sleep in my own bed at night.) I would strongly encourage anyone into tabletop games to go at least once. Although I’ve been a little troubled by the (possible) lighter attendance this year by gamers and vendors, disappointed by some screw-ups in registration and event ticketing, and upset that the auction seems to be dying a slow death, these are relatively minor nits in the big scheme of things and shouldn’t be taken to imply there is any serious problem with the convention. There isn’t.