It is definitely cheaper, and there are so few AAA, so the "it just fills a void" argument is 100% valid at this point.
Also, the panel effect is somewhat explained by the PAX 10 being Tabletop. With the indies already there, they say "OK might as well submit a panel."
East definitely blows it out of the water. But I'm curious to see if the foothold (whether from pushing in or filling a void) leads to further proportional growth in the future.
You give it room to grow, and PAX South could surprise you. I'm really curious to see how it fares in year 3, as some aspects felt scaled back from year 1. The only thing that surprised me was how, although Tabletop filled better than last year, we didn't have to kick a single table out at closing time. The place emptied in the last half hour. Is this a southern thing?
It is definitely cheaper, and there are so few AAA, so the "it just fills a void" argument is 100% valid at this point.
Also, the panel effect is somewhat explained by the PAX 10 being Tabletop. With the indies already there, they say "OK might as well submit a panel."
East definitely blows it out of the water. But I'm curious to see if the foothold (whether from pushing in or filling a void) leads to further proportional growth in the future.
You give it room to grow, and PAX South could surprise you. I'm really curious to see how it fares in year 3, as some aspects felt scaled back from year 1. The only thing that surprised me was how, although Tabletop filled better than last year, we didn't have to kick a single table out at closing time. The place emptied in the last half hour. Is this a southern thing?
Last year, WE were the only table still around that Joe had to come kick out.
They should really make all PAX 10s a mix of tabletop and video games.
Returns the BGG-rated "weight" of the game as a 3. I also have a lookup table of PAX library game names w/ their corresponding BGG database id #s. Only problem is the PAX data is pretty dirty, and there are many name mis-matches.
Made a shit-ton of progress on that convention stats sheet. Using the IMPORTXML function and some simple scripting, I was able to pull down the BGG "weight" of all games owned in the PAX library and bounce that against a spreadsheet that has a summary of South's checkout data.
This told me that the avg game checked out at South '16 was a weight of 2.03. The library as a whole was a weight of 1.96.
Does not tell us much on its own, but I'm looking forward to running this script on future show data to compare conventions to each other.
Although heavily sponsored by a non-gaming company, the replacement for the LoL area was actually w welcome addition to PAX. I hope return of LoL doesn't eliminate it.
It's likely to be relatively tiny as all the important / major competitions are held at their own studios or they book sporting venues.
At most I imagine they will do a merchandise booth and maybe do a few mini competitions with PAX attendees, possibly an exhibition. It shouldn't draw the attention that a final would. The current split's finals are being held in Las Vegas.
At worst they will have the finals for the University competition which has a tiny following compared to the main league.
I'm thinking of taking a bit after things dies down later Friday and/or Saturday to run some RPGs. I've got a shitload of games like Torchbearer, Questlandia, Apocalypse World/Monsterhearts, and so forth, plus all the stuff I've been writing. I'm hoping to debut the new and improved magical girl game outside my test group there, and I've got my military games and 1-pages. Would anyone in the crew be down with such shenanigans?
(I'll probably have some recording equipment with me too, so this could be Actual Play podcast material.)
Looks like some company rented out the Westin lobby, so the board gamer masses are going to be spread out all over the hotel lobby scene. Expect a difficult time finding table space on Thursday night.
And the people they find for these PAX Panels are often complete no-names, coming from companies nobody has ever heard of. There are a few notable people, but not many. Gil Hova from Formal Ferret. Travis from The Game Crafter.
Comments
Also, the panel effect is somewhat explained by the PAX 10 being Tabletop. With the indies already there, they say "OK might as well submit a panel."
East definitely blows it out of the water. But I'm curious to see if the foothold (whether from pushing in or filling a void) leads to further proportional growth in the future.
You give it room to grow, and PAX South could surprise you. I'm really curious to see how it fares in year 3, as some aspects felt scaled back from year 1. The only thing that surprised me was how, although Tabletop filled better than last year, we didn't have to kick a single table out at closing time. The place emptied in the last half hour. Is this a southern thing?
They should really make all PAX 10s a mix of tabletop and video games.
For example:
=IMPORTXML("https://www.boardgamegeek.com/xmlapi2/thing?id=54221&stats=1","//averageweight/@value")
Returns the BGG-rated "weight" of the game as a 3. I also have a lookup table of PAX library game names w/ their corresponding BGG database id #s. Only problem is the PAX data is pretty dirty, and there are many name mis-matches.
This told me that the avg game checked out at South '16 was a weight of 2.03. The library as a whole was a weight of 1.96.
Does not tell us much on its own, but I'm looking forward to running this script on future show data to compare conventions to each other.
At most I imagine they will do a merchandise booth and maybe do a few mini competitions with PAX attendees, possibly an exhibition. It shouldn't draw the attention that a final would. The current split's finals are being held in Las Vegas.
At worst they will have the finals for the University competition which has a tiny following compared to the main league.
Maybe another horror panel too. Stay tuned!
(I'll probably have some recording equipment with me too, so this could be Actual Play podcast material.)
Looks like some company rented out the Westin lobby, so the board gamer masses are going to be spread out all over the hotel lobby scene. Expect a difficult time finding table space on Thursday night.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IA4arzDyFELmIYvlHW2vsO16AZF-5UeY7ZyzEH_FGbY/edit?usp=sharing