Episode 23 – Convention Time
In this episode, we talk about board game conventions, exhibitions and events. We touch on the best things about in-person events and share our thoughts and experiences with digital conventions.
If you have board game-related problems you want our help with, then feel free to ask them in our dedicated Discord channel at https://discord.gg/fxQTVGW
Intro Music: Black Moons by The 126er on YouTube
Games List
In order of appearance:
- Zombie Fluxx
- Haunt the House
Oliver’s review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2019/02/23/haunt-the-house/
Oliver’s unboxing: https://youtu.be/oWpe5GQw3Zg - Jaws
Oliver’s review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2020/10/10/jaws-saturday-review/
Oliver’s unboxing: https://youtu.be/kSHBMuIL-0g - Nyctophobia
- Fury of Dracula
- Castles of Tuscany
Antoinette’s review: https://youtu.be/GteIeAWsobA - Bonfire
- Q.E.
Oliver’s review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2020/10/31/q-e-saturday-review/
Oliver’s unboxing: https://youtu.be/VLN4z7ndm1o - Xia: Legends of a Drift System
- Seasons of Rice
Oliver’s review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2020/11/07/seasons-of-rice-saturday-review/ - Sprawlopolis
- Fog of Love
- Skull King
Oliver’s review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2020/01/04/skull-king-saturday-review/
I’ll be at Airecon if it seems at all sensible. (It would also make a nice “bookmark”, because this year’s was my last in-person event.) Hope to see Oliver there!
And of course if Expo happens… if Tabletop Scotland happens… if Spiel happens…
Only one of the virtual conventions I’ve “been to” has felt anything like a real convention, and that was yog-sothoth.com’s Convocation (Call of Cthulhu RPG): the site owner did a live stream on the first morning, and there’s always a strong community feel there.
Walking the halls is the reason I go to Spiel: it’s for the games from obscure publishers that I’d never otherwise hear about. (That’s how I found Small Star Empires, Death Over the Kingdom, Magic Maze, Project L….) But at something that size I don’t want to watch even a 30-second video from each company; with most of them I can just glance at the offerings, say “not for me”, and move on. For the releases from the big companies that have the budget to do a virtual thing well, I’ll probably hear about them anyway from Antoinette or NPI or SU&SD anyway…
Discord is just IRC, reinvented badly, with bonus privacy invasion. “Your” Discord server is still run by Discord Inc., and they gather all the data they can about all users across all servers; it’s Facebook data-mining without the bad reputation. If a service is free but the provider is making a profit, you need to consider where the money’s coming from. (But if you want a section in my forum, discussion.tekeli.li, drop me a line. I inherited the SU&SD forum users when they suddenly shut down their own forum and I was running the same software. 🙂
I think the virtual vs real Spiel cuts the other way too – lots of the local Germans who turn up are very casual gamers who wouldn’t think of using a dedicated gaming web site, but like to see what’s new in person.
Hello Roger. Thank you for your comment. Walking the halls is probably what most people want out of an exhibition. I think that’s what many of us struggle with because it seems impossible to replicate in a virtual form. Discord’s privacy implications is something others have also mentioned and it’s definitely something to consider. Let’s hope that we all can meet in person again soon. It will be such an amazing experience again.