Thoughts on Spiel Essen

[Matt Machell]

I promised Luke I'd let him know how it was, and figured others (especially those who were considering a shared booth at a future con) might be interested. If you want to read a more detailed report, I posted one at Realms, which has a rundown of some of the games I thought were cool.

Spiel's a big con. It's a hybrid of a tradeshow and gaming con. From just the discussions I had with stall holders, you get companies turning up to seek distributors and preorders, as well as retailers looking for the next big thing. There's plenty of stalls selling games too, and I saw people with trolleys going round buying up all the "big releases" and "hot games" on day one. It was packed too, 150,000 people over the four days.

It's very definitely a family affair too, people of all ages in attendence. It's also remarkably international, I saw companies from the US, Japan, Korea and all over Europe. I speak a fair bit of German, but I could have easily managed without.

It is mostly about the boardgames and cardgames. Of the nine halls, most are filled with the big german boardgames, cardgames and assorted mammoth CCG areas. The good thing is it's based on solid actual play, you arrive and go from stall to stall trying out each new game. If you like boardgames it'll wear you down, there's so much to take in.

RPGs are relegated mostly (bar a few stragglers) to the large, but somehow slightly dingier, hall 6 (I saw one parent steering her children clear of it). The hall was largely dominated by the Gamesworkshop and Confrontation miniatures areas, and a huge number of stalls selling rubber-sword LARP kit (apparently it's the easiest place to get kit, and fantasy LARP is big and commerical in Germany).

The big missing element though was the actual play. It's all the more obvious 'cos if you spend five seconds by a stall in the rest of the con you get sucked into a quick demo. The RPG stalls were the opposite. It was very obviously a "sell the books", "sell the art" approach. With occasional "try our cardgame" additions.

There were a few exceptions, I talked to the Sighpress guys and they ran a few demos on the Saturday, and the hybrid RPG/cardgame Aye, Dark Overlord had a table set up. A crossover game like this probably has a lot of potential at Spiel.

All in all, I reckon there's a bit of a gap in the con for RPGs sold thorugh quick demos (as I understand works so well at GenCon for you guys). I'd be intrigued to know what impression those who've been to Spiel more than once got...

-Matt

[Luke]

Thanks, Matt. I wish things hadn't gone south and I could have been there with you. Because as I read your post, one word came to mind: opportunity!

-L

[Eero Tuovinen]

Opportunity, indeed! Just imagine: position among the boardgames, with the same insistence on actual play and clarity of purpose. I guess fluent German would be a good thing, though.

Let it be known that I'm very interested in doing Essen next year just for the kicks. We'd need several operatives, though, and there's not that many of us in Europe...

[Matt Machell]

I guess fluent German would be a good thing, though.

Useful but not essential; The standard first question from most stalls was "English or Deutsch?" I bumped into many UK-based boardgames people who had no German at all, but still managed to demo and sell lots of copies. Since Essen isn't a tourist town though, decent language skills are probably more useful for outside the Con.

-Matt

[oliof]

Authors can probably win over some of us native germans to help them staff their booths and demo games for them. 
As this would probably be on a voluntary basis, this might not get you full coverage, but some help may be better than nothing.

Regards,
    Harald

[Victor Gijsbers]

Essen - hm, that's actually not so far from Utrecht. I might consider going there next year if there's something like a Forge booth, in which case I'd be more than willing to run some demo's. (In English; I can read German, but speaking it is something else entirely.)

[Christian Urs Wohlthat]

Interesting to hear opinions from non-Germans on "our big event". Nice you liked it but I would like to add a few things. First about the Spiel, then about how it changed and then about Essen.
The Spielemesse in Essen (there is another one in the South of Germany, Ulm I think) is the biggest trading place for games in Germany and since it's quite old, RPGs are not it's main focus. From what I know about GenCon and comparable events, comparing the Spielemesse to GenCon is not working out - on both ends. First and foremost, as Matt said, it's about boardgames, then (for several years now) it's dealing with card games alot and it is dealing with RPGS, too.
It used to be more "interactive" when I started going there, but I have the feeling (could be wrong) that demoing is getting fewer and fewer every year. When, at the end of the nities, several big RPGs and presses flunked out, WotC took over alot, as did Feder&Schwert (German distributer of the WoD and White Wolf). I didn't make it this year, but in general the Spielemesse is still a good place to go. You get all the new games, the guys are usually communicative, lots of small presses are around and on the first day and the last day the prices are incredible. Often you will find old stuff as well and can get your hands on things you wouldn't find elsewhere.

Now a small excourse on Essen. I'm biased of course, it's my hometown. So, basically that means I know it's not a jewel, but hey, it's to us what Manchester and Liverpool are to the English. If you come here and look for tourist attractions, go away, we have them, but unless you are looking for very special things (the first Christian Madonna plastic/statuette in history, 12th century), or you are very much into classical music (Folkwang musical highschool) or theatre (lots of them), or you like to hike (Baldeney See = Lake Baldeney) or are interested in the history of Krupp (Villa Hügel, the "ancestral home" of the Krupp family) you cannot really find tourist attractions. Essen is not Cologne, Dusseldorf or Berlin. But if you visit Cologne and Dusseldorf connecting this with the Spielemesse is a good idea.

Regards,
CUW

[Frank T]

I think there is indeed great opportunity. The Forge-style demoing of RPGs is, as far as I know, unheard of over here. People were already looking sceptical as Projekt Odyssee announced they would run two-hour-slots on the book fair in Leipzig. Those, however, proved smashing successes especially with families and total none-gamers. I think it'd be awesome to have someone like Luke around to show us how a 15-minute-demo works.

It is too early now to really plan this for real, but I can say I'm really, really interested. Hopefully BARBAREN! will be out by next fall, but even if the sky collapses on my head and I don't have the game ready for Spiel, I would still take part in a Forge booth Essen and demo other people's games.

- Frank

[Matt Machell]

It used to be more "interactive" when I started going there, but I have the feeling (could be wrong) that demoing is getting fewer and fewer every year.

Thanks for adding your experiences, Christian. I only experienced one year, so it's interesting to hear how it's been different before, but taken a slow slide. From an outsider perspective the focus in the main halls on demoing, compared to the RPG hall, seems to present an ideal opportunity for a different approach.

As somebody who's gone before, do you know if many "out of hours" gaming events go on in Essen due to Spiel? This is the type of thing I reckon I'd miss due to not being a local.

So, basically that means I know it's not a jewel, but hey, it's to us what Manchester and Liverpool are to the English.

I compare it with my own location of Birmingham, if that means anything to people? It's modern and functional and, as a central location, is good for conventions. We combined our trip wiht one to Cologne.

-Matt

[Christian Urs Wohlthat]

Well, I've never been to Birmingham, but to Liverpool and Manchester. But you're totally right, it's modern, functional and central indeed. It used to be the heart of Germans heavy industry area and had to change to something diffrent. Other (smaller) cities could adopt faster, but Essen did a lot, given the low funds for decades. Most of the historic (or early 20th cent.) central city was lost during the war anyway, as were British city centers of comparable cities.
Curiously conventions have been rather few here. Friends of mine used to do a small con for some years and we have a battletech con around, but most cons in the Ruhr area are in neighbouring cities or in the Rhine cities (Cologne, Bonn, Dusseldorf). I dunno why.

I second that more demoing would be a good way to to go, but we had something like a "press-dying" here. When (end of ninties) a lot of US/UK presses went down or "consolidated" we had only few big presses to take over. FanPro mostly and a good deal went to Feder & Schwert. It seems that recovering seems to take a while, still.
"Out of hours" events you can have alot, but I never saw something like a "official" noteboard like you know from true conventions. It's a trading market after all. But I guess you'll have plenty of opportunity to find a group for playing if you just ask customers and shop keepers. It might be taking alot of "personal initiative", though. Usually I meet with friends to play afterwards (it ends at 6pm after all) and we either test our freshly pillaged items or we play some old systems. Very likely you can also find Englsih speaking players from diffrent countries, not only shop keepers I guess. Customers are pretts international as well.
There are also alot of pseudo-restricted areas (the wooden stand aloone walls that you might have noticed, usually next to the fire exits). Behind these walls and outside the building (were the LARPers excercise swordplay) you can also find gaming groups who play ad hoc.

-CUW