Convention? Trade Show?

[Helvetian]

Is GenCon considered a convention, or a trade show?  And what do people considered the difference?  I was under the impression that GenCon and Origins are more trade shows, at least in their own view of themselves.  My experiences with trade shows do not extend to the gaming industry, so what little I know of them is only that they are focused more on demonstrating to potential retailers/distributors the benefits of using/carrying their products.  With using/demoing the products with individuals really being secondary to that goal, and a tool by which publishers/manufacturers can show those potential distributors/companies the potential market for those products.

Rebecca Badurina
Double Exposure, Inc.

[Valamir]

GAMA is a trade show exactly as you'd imagine.

GenCon and Origins are conventions, nor do they view themselves as tradeshows.  They are very very different from GAMA.

The distinguishing feature of a gaming convention is getting a bunch of people together who don't know each other for several days (4 in the case of the big 2) of intense 24 hour (or as near to as you can stand) gaming.  

The retailer / distributor presence at GenCon or Origins is minimal.  GAMA is all about the manufacturer / distributor / retailer relationship.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Ralph's got it right.

The GAMA Trade Show is typically held in March, and in the past few years at a single location in Las Vegas. The attendees are retailers, the exhibitors are publishers. Distributors fall into a kind of smooth/weird intermediate category, both in terms of membership and their role in attending.

The publishers' goal in getting a booth at the GTS is promotion for purposes of their products being ordered by retailers and distributors. In theory, the target is the former, as retailers' orders are supposed to drive distributor orders. In reality, the situation is either reversed or a bit muddled, depending on the year. Briefly, most publishers are very concerned with being "held" or "picked up" by a distributor (terms which lead me toward many further comments, but never mind).

Anyway. There are no customers at the GTS in the sense of role-players or other gaming-enthusiasts, and one does not attend in the hopes of actually selling copies to any meaningful extent. It's strictly about promotion for formal ordering and a lot of opportunities for business-oriented networking. Speaking just for myself, I have found attendance to be extraordinarily important for establishing my books in game stores worldwide.

GenCon and Origins, on the other hand, are end-use customer conventions. The attendees are people who buy the games in the stores or on-line, convening mainly to play the games, to meet others who do so, to meet artists or authors they like, to participate in a variety of associated activities (e.g. watch anime), and to buy more games. A great deal of companies time their new releases to appear at the convention, because a good run of sales there can be extremely profitable.

More subtly, distributors often do attend these conventions in a kind of "hunt for the new thing" way, because bluntly, they are not especially impressed by promotional presences at the GTS, having seen hundreds of companies disappear due to unexpected printing and advertising costs. They want to see product, and evidence that you can really spend money on it (e.g. a cool booth), and evidence that people might be buying it.

GenCon, although it has passed through a remarkable number of managing personalities, has consistently been a good avenue for publishers to succeed in, or to fail absolutely miserably (a two-GenCon run is typical before meeting The Void). It seems to include a "real market" quality, in the economics sense.

Origins varies in this regard, and is hard to characterize. At present, many publishers consider that investing fully in booths at both Origins (early July, Columbus OH) and GenCon (August, Indianapolis IN) is overkill, with the clear winner in terms of payoff being the latter.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Oops! One clarification:

GAMA = Game Manufacturers Association

GTS = GAMA Trade Show

Although the terminology and most common references indicate that the relationship between these things is straightforward ("this is the organization, this is the show it puts on"), it turns out that historically this is not the case. This is so confusing, though, that it's probably not worth trying to parse out unless you're involved in the occasional dust-up over GAMA leadership.