(Moderators: John, Paul)
‹ Previous Topic | Next Topic ›
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
Topic Tools
Normal Topic Anime Weekend Atlanta (Read 816 times)
Ironnerd
Justice Leaguer
*****
Offline


Crunchy on the outside,
chewy on the inside.

Posts: 833
Location: Atlanta, GA
Joined: Aug 30th, 2009
Gender: Male
Anime Weekend Atlanta
Sep 30th, 2012 at 12:10pm
Print Post  
Fans... Stop showing up when I'm in the video room Smiley

For anyone at AWA I'm between the "My Little Pony" and "Lolita Gear" booths in Artists' Alley. Location, Location, Location...
« Last Edit: Sep 30th, 2012 at 12:11pm by Ironnerd »  
John "Ironnerd" Adams
"The GM is the balancing mechanic" - Klystron
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Ironnerd
Justice Leaguer
*****
Offline


Crunchy on the outside,
chewy on the inside.

Posts: 833
Location: Atlanta, GA
Joined: Aug 30th, 2009
Gender: Male
Re: Anime Weekend Atlanta
Reply #1 - Oct 1st, 2012 at 8:04am
Print Post  
I have survived yet another convention. They sure have changed since I first started going to them back in 1994. Back then there were only three girls at the cons - a really skinny girl with bad teeth and worse hair, a enormously fat gal, and the fat gal's cat-lady mother. Everyone was freakishly white - as in never seen sunlight-white. The video rooms were the biggest draw. VHS and DVD's spirited out of Japan with dreadful subtitles would fill rooms with fanboys eager to get their fix of new anime. A few wore costumes, but not many - there was always a "Sailor Bubba"
http://cdn.head-fi.org/5/54/549a9bd5_SailorBubba.jpeg.
Back then cons were a place we nerds went to fit in. To rid ourselves, if even for just a weekend, of the incomprehensible madness of the "real world". It was where we refuelled our passion for the art (be that Star Trek, Comic Books, RPG's, or whatever), re-united with old friends, and acquired new stuff - new games, new anime, new movies, new art...

Today the con is dramatically different. It not a haven for nerds anymore, it's a celebration of the nerdly arts. Thousands fill hotels and convention centers. It is still a haven of sorts, but not nearly the cozy, intimate setting it once was. The video rooms are seldom more than 1/3 filled, most of the attendees are now in costume - and about half are GIRLS! Heck, some conventions even receive TV coverage. The biggest draw now is the cosplay and the dance. The RPG room has been long since replaced by the video-game room where pretending to dance or play guitar has supplanted pretending to slay dragons or capture villains. The things we do, are now the things done by "normal" people - so how are we different? How are we still nerds?

Anyway, I had a pretty good time at the con this year - I even managed to sell some product. Yad and I are working on ideas to sell/advertise the game a little more. It does have one powerful selling point; it's dirt cheap! When you tell someone that the rule book is $8.00, you have their interest. Several people stopped by and said "Oh, HEY! I haven't seen this game in YEARS." Several more flipped through the Giants we had on display and exclaimed "You have STATS for these drawings! COOL!". We gave away several printouts of the "Marie" freebie, and had a few people come back with the print -
Q: "Is this a comic character?"
A: "Not yet. Right now she's a villain for a Super Hero RPG?"
Q: "Super-Hero RPG? Tell me everything..."

There was a guy who could not get it through his head that there are game that are not played on computers... it took several long minutes to explain the concept to him --- With a little luck, his life was ruined.

There are also the guys who told me, "I only play D20 games." My reply was, "Then your missing out."

That's my AWA report - thanks to all the good people who made it possible, and to the hotel employees for putting up with the mass of people dressed as cartoon characters.
« Last Edit: Oct 1st, 2012 at 8:04am by Ironnerd »  
John "Ironnerd" Adams
"The GM is the balancing mechanic" - Klystron
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Ironnerd
Justice Leaguer
*****
Offline


Crunchy on the outside,
chewy on the inside.

Posts: 833
Location: Atlanta, GA
Joined: Aug 30th, 2009
Gender: Male
Re: Anime Weekend Atlanta
Reply #2 - Oct 2nd, 2012 at 5:58pm
Print Post  
No love for the ATL, eh?
  
John "Ironnerd" Adams
"The GM is the balancing mechanic" - Klystron
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
AlabasterKnight
Justice Leaguer
*****
Offline


Heroing since 1979.

Posts: 1142
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Joined: Jun 21st, 2010
Gender: Male
Re: Anime Weekend Atlanta
Reply #3 - Oct 2nd, 2012 at 6:29pm
Print Post  
I loved your report. Nice work being at the con!
And I am definitely making plans to do some cons out west here as soon as I can.
« Last Edit: Oct 2nd, 2012 at 6:30pm by AlabasterKnight »  
If it's not fun, we're not doing it right.
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Ironnerd
Justice Leaguer
*****
Offline


Crunchy on the outside,
chewy on the inside.

Posts: 833
Location: Atlanta, GA
Joined: Aug 30th, 2009
Gender: Male
Re: Anime Weekend Atlanta
Reply #4 - Oct 2nd, 2012 at 11:45pm
Print Post  
First you try to tell me that Arizona has "towns", not you tell my they have conventions out there? Who knew? Grin

Table-top gaming is not as huge as you might think her in ATL. I mean, yeah, Dragon-Con is supposed to be a Gaming Convention, but mostly it's a nerdapalousa. At AWA, the gaming room was in another hotel... I never even managed to find the gaming room (mostly because I was pimping V&V in Artists' Alley).

I hope that by next year, I will be able to convince more people that ours is a game worth their coin and their time.

Perhaps we need a $2 adventure - to package with the rule book for a total of $10. Something simple and basic and fun for 1st time players and GM's. I'll ponder that.

For now I require sleep.
  
John "Ironnerd" Adams
"The GM is the balancing mechanic" - Klystron
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Majestic
Justice Leaguer
*****
Offline


Guardian of Earth

Posts: 5179
Location: Seattle
Joined: Jun 8th, 2009
Gender: Male
Re: Anime Weekend Atlanta
Reply #5 - Oct 4th, 2012 at 4:18pm
Print Post  
Great job getting the game out there, Ypsilanti!  Smiley
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Ironnerd
Justice Leaguer
*****
Offline


Crunchy on the outside,
chewy on the inside.

Posts: 833
Location: Atlanta, GA
Joined: Aug 30th, 2009
Gender: Male
Re: Anime Weekend Atlanta
Reply #6 - Oct 4th, 2012 at 6:19pm
Print Post  
Thanks, Majestic. I 'preciate it. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it (yeah... there were LOTS of cosplay-girls... so what? It's really hard work selling books at a con!)

I'm going to try to hit "Atlanta Game Fest". It advertises "4 days of fun and games" but you can buy a membership for five days... I may ask them about that...

We also have Momocon, Atlanta Comicon, and I think they may do Dragon-Con again next year... I'll see what I can do about getting into these -time, money, and WIFE permitting.

What I would really like to do is have a few rulebooks on hand to sell, and a bunch of cheap thumbdrives loaded with "Giants", which I would sell at the PDF price on the web site, keep my bit and send the rest to FGU HQ. Or, HECK, we could do "Custom Giants", just load up all the individual adventures/sourcebooks to a drive and sell them to the customer right there.

Hmmm... back to "Space Adventure" (I bet Yad two beers that I would have it finished before he had the art for GB2 complete).
  
John "Ironnerd" Adams
"The GM is the balancing mechanic" - Klystron
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
Topic Tools
‹ Previous Topic | Next Topic ›
 
  « Board Index ‹ Board Top  

The Villains and Vigilantes Forum. Check out our latest discussion threads! » Powered by YaBB 2.6.12!
YaBB Forum Software © 2000-2024. All Rights Reserved.

Valid RSS Valid XHTML Valid CSS Powered by Perl Source Forge


>