GenCon from the GamerChicksRule-oriented male perspective

It was the fastest four days I've experienced in a while, but it was a really good time. This was probably the hardest GenCon to have to leave, and I think that says a lot about the direction of the industry and the potential impact that groups like GamerChicksRule.com can have.

The events I ran included the Zombies!!! session for kids and an introduction to D&D for women. The Zombies game was fun, and the kids were all 6 to 9. Kids can sometimes have short attention spans, but they were great. I think the only girl that played got into it even more than the boys did. The D&D introduction for women included a women who had played a small amount of D&D, another who had played 25 years ago, and a third who had watched it played. They were fantastic! I really want to run the same adventure again because it was just a blast.

We took a gamble with the community get together by having it at the mall food court rather than renting some space. I was hopeful after being there a few times during the convention and seeing how empty it was. Unfortunately, Saturday evening was not one of those times. We did manage to stake out a whole row of tables to ourselves, but the crowds probably kept some people from finding us. If you were there and couldn't find us, leave a comment so we know who missed out. ShoshieB1 met afira at an event earlier in the week, and we were excited to have her there. Since we had gotten together so many things to give away, she went away with some nice loot including some pink dice, a copy of Super Munchkin, and a t-shirt. At least for our first GenCon party, we can say that we are generous. Next time we're going to see about renting a meeting room or perhaps even registering it as an official event.

Since I had been so busy Thursday through Saturday with working a volunteer shift at the Privateer Press booth, running events, and taking PhiPhiBabe to the costume competition (where she won first prize in the children's category!), I didn't get a chance to really see the exhibit hall until Sunday. Sunday in the exhibit hall is always interesting because everyone is tired from the four days of work and walking around.

Some of the companies still don't get it. They don't really think of women and girls as being part of their market. Many of them see women as an afterthought and really just keep focused on the male gamer community. However, the number of companies who are different is increasing.

I really feel that the underrepresented publishers and designers are the ones that deserve at least some of my attention as a representative of GamerChicksRule.com since they have the most to gain and are more likely to spend some time talking. In the next few days, I'll be following up with a handful of the people I talked to that either really seemed to be interested in the female gamer market or had products that I think the community would be intersted in hearing about. From there, ShoshieB1 and I will be getting local Gamer Chicks together to try out some of the games we found and do proper reviews.

In the meantime, if you were at GenCon and have any thoughts, please post a blog entry or a story about it. We'd love to hear from you!