Post the Fifth: Games on Demand
Games on Demand, first and foremost, was awesome. I’m less convinced about the utility of this post than I was having seen some of the posts by John Stavropoulos. But GoD is such a cool thing that I think that there really can’t be enough dialogue devoted to looking at what it does well, and what it could do better. I’m just a guy. I have no affiliation with Games on Demand aside from enjoying the fruits of others’ labor. Still, I think there may be some value in the “just folks” perspective.
First off, given some recent discussion, and the possible array of people who may read this, it’s probably a good idea to say what Games on Demand is. The name gives a hint, but there are sometimes misconceptions engendered by the name, so I’ll be overly-explicit, as is my habit. Games on Demand is an initiative to make independently published and small press games available for play during game conventions on a flexible basis. For those who don’t frequent gaming conventions, it may be important to know that most events are scheduled well in advanced, and people sign up for them based on time slot and number of available players. Often you can get into a game at the last minute if the player slots don’t fill up, or if someone doesn’t show up for their scheduled game. At GenCon, you pay for these last-minute games with Generic tickets. Games on Demand, on the other hand, does not have specific games scheduled that you pre-register for. You show up to the GoD room with Generic tickets in hand, and the volunteer staff there matches players up with GMs and games on a flexible basis. Most games run in 2 hour slots, but some run in 4 hour slots. To steal shamelessly from a conversation with Steve Segedy, GoD’s purpose is threefold: 1. To expose indie games to a wider spectrum of players, 2. To act as a central hub for the indie community at gaming cons, and 3. To drive sales for the retailers who design and sell these games.
When I first visited Games on Demand in 2008, it wasn’t even that regimented. I showed up, BS’d with a couple people I casually knew, and then someone grabbed some people together and we played a game. There were Games, but there wasn’t a massive amount of Demand. Four years later, that has changed, completely. On Thursday, GoD was filling up every table, but sometimes if you came in right at the hour, you’d still stand a chance of getting into a game. By Friday, there was a line out the door every two hours. By Saturday, they were overflowing the overflow room, and the line was extending partway down the hall. I think it can be said without any overstatement that Games on Demand has become a big deal. So, extensive background behind us, I’ll talk a little bit about my experiences. Part 3 already covered the games I played, so I’ll limit this post to talking about the logistics.
First, you may remember how many games I played that I mentioned were “not at the top of my list”. Games on Demand is good for that, if you’re open to it. Sometimes the game you want to play isn’t available at the time you come in, or it fills up before you get a chance to join the game. Your choices at this point are pretty limited. You can either go away and try later, or you can play something else. In most cases, I went with option two, and didn’t regret it. So, if you’re all fired up about a particular game, it may behoove you to make arrangements with the GM in advance, either through Games on Demand, or for after hours gaming. It is important to note that the staffers were willing to work with you to get a particular game, if they had a GM who was willing and able to run it, but your chances of getting it last minute aren’t as good as if you coordinated ahead of time.
The crowding and noise has been talked about elsewhere, but as much as it was a problem (I spent a good portion of every game with my hand cupped to my ear so I could hear, except the one we did in the Playtest room) I think it’s one of those things you’ve just got to accept for con gaming. They’re already talking about expanding into a second room, and having less tables per room (10 down from 12) which will alleviate some of the problem, but it’s never going to be quiet, especially when a nearby game gets rowdy; On more than one occasion, our play paused briefly as everyone looked across the room at someone roaring or shouting or busting up with laughter. It even happened more than a few times at the table I was at; At a couple points during the Fiasco game, I was near to falling out of my seat because I was laughing so hard. It’s annoying sometimes, but you know, it’s also part of the crazy joy of con gaming. At least I didn’t have to deal with play getting loud and ugly at a nearby table, like I heard elsewhere. The GoD staffers rarely (if ever?) had to deal with problem players.
The biggest, least positive aspect of GoD was the demand. As mentioned above, the lines got pretty crazy. Reading After Action Reviews from some of the staffers, they managed to get almost everyone into a game, but it certainly didn’t look that way to me, or to a couple people I spoke to. I’m willing to take on trust that they managed to accommodate nearly everyone, but I’m going to address my own experience. It became obvious pretty early that if you wanted a chance to get into a game, you arrived early, sometimes as much as 30 minutes early. Otherwise, you ended up somewhere back in the massive line. I know more than a couple times, I just looked at the line, and decided it was a good time to go crawl the dealer’s hall, or grab something to eat. Sometimes, I was reasonably certain I could get into a game, but if I’d just gotten out of one, I felt selfish about trying to jump right back into line, and potentially deny a seat to someone else who maybe hadn’t got a chance to play yet. When I’d get near the front of the line, where I could see the board, there’d usually be a dozen plus games on the board, but almost all of them would be full already.
This next part is where I tell on myself. I never really did this on purpose, but I didn’t say no when it happened, either. Sometimes, I’d get into that big ol’ line, and wait a bit, chatting it up with other people in the line. Then at some point, I’d decide to go look to see what the board looked like. As it was inside the room, I’d have to walk past the majority of the line. Once inside, sometimes someone would be like “Hey, you want to get in on such-and-such?” I’d glance around, considering saying no… But I never did. That’s how Dog Eat Dog happened, and the Fiasco game. The staffers were being very proactive about getting people into the games, but with the way things were set up, it was very difficult to tell who was wandering in to get a look at the board, and who had stood their turn in line.
The root cause of the problems, as I see it, is that demand was either way, way past expectation, or there simply wasn’t sufficient supply. By supply, I mean GMs and table space; Mostly GMs, as the GoD folks were not afraid to scavenge tables wherever they could find them, so long as there were GMs willing to run and players willing to play. Still, despite the valiant efforts of the GMs and Hosts at GoD, I think I can say with 100% certainty that there was never at any point a surplus of GMs. I’m not sure what standards, if any, exist for determining who is allowed to run games for Games on Demand. Hopefully someone who does know will chime in here. But with plans to expand the gaming space, and the numbers to justify it, it seems to me that the biggest issue is GMs, and the only obvious way to fix that is to have more people volunteer. I know that, whenever I may manage to get back to GenCon, I will be making an effort to get involved with Games on Demand as either a Host, a GM or both. You may consider this an unauthorized and unofficial call to do the same.
In closing, I’d like to reiterate my deep appreciation for all of the hard work that went into making Games on Demand, and by extension GenCon, rock so much for me. I confess to having no real idea of how much went into it, but I want to thank the Hosts who sat at the desk to chat with random strangers (i.e. me) when they wandered into the room between games, who grabbed their crooks and herded cats into table after table of indie game awesome, and who made sure everything ran as smoothly as possible. I also want to thank all of the folks who ran the games I enjoyed so much (see names in Post 3) and who ran all the games I didn’t play in, without whom none of the rest would have mattered much.
Finally, as this is the conclusion of my GenCon Postmortem, I want to say that this GenCon was pretty much everything I wanted it to be. I am used to disappointment in many areas of my life, so I try not to raise my hopes too high. I often fail to keep my hopes realistic, and as a result, I’m often crushed by experiences that, without that inflated expectation, were actually pretty decent. This GenCon wasn’t like that at all. I won’t claim that I wasn’t disappointed at various points throughout the weekend, and even in retrospect I wish there were people I’d talked to, and games I’d played (or bought; Thanks a bunch, Jay…) but this is the first thing in a long time that was actually as good or better than I wanted it to be. So, to all of you folks I mentioned in previous posts and all of you random strangers whose names I never caught:
Thank you.
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