Anime con culture encourages that bullshit. Otakon did well to ban it: look how bad it gets at other anime cons where it isn't banned. Gaming con culture doesn't encourage it. But as a result, it's novel. If PAX doesn't clamp down, either culturally or with rules, it will become popular and grow just the same there.
Yea, if you guys remember it wasn't like signs were big at first, a few people did it one year, other people noticed they were getting mad attention so next year it grew and grew until it got way more obnoxious. (and people started offering sexual favors)
Yea, if you guys remember it wasn't like signs were big at first, a few people did it one year, other people noticed they were getting mad attention so next year it grew and grew until it got way more obnoxious. (and people started offering sexual favors)
My guess is that, at PAX, people can get away with shit like that once. But when other people try to copy, they'll be shamed out of it, due to the con culture seeded by the Enforcers.
My guess is that, at PAX, people can get away with shit like that once. But when other people try to copy, they'll be shamed out of it, due to the con culture seeded by the Enforcers.
That and a lot of enforcers are former anime con attendees and already are sick of that B.S.
I don't think signs should be banned. What do you care if someone else has a stupid sign? As long as they aren't doing anything illegal (prostitution laws may justify the ban), and they aren't hugging without consent, what do you care? It has nothing to do with you. You aren't the hugger or huggee. As long as the behavior isn't illegal, dangerous (horseplay, vuvuzela), or obstructing the operations of the convention (blocking a hallway), let it be. When you were a 14 year old nerd, the prospect of free consenting hugs from cute 14 year old girls would have been totally sweet. You would have probably skipped any event at the convention if it meant some extra hugs. If an old man tried to put a stop to it, you would have said "fuck you old man!" I recall reading a story on this very forum about some awesome spin the bottle at a convention. To that I say way to go. For us, it's moronic. For a teenager, it's a rite of passage.
It sometimes seems I'm the only person in the world who hasn't learned the lesson. Don't be your grandparents complaining about that "evil rock and roll music." Don't be your parents complaining about "those video games or that rap music." Let the kids be what the kids be, as long as it's safe and legal.
We should really just stop this conversation until something like the week of awesome and then record it for awesome :-p
You're right. It would be nice to record the yelling so people can understand what we're really like when we get going. :P
Gamers at Otakon are just as obnoxious as Otakon-goers in my experience.
Because they're primarily anime fans, I bet. Gamers who go to PAX are usually gamers first and foremost.
there were two guys walking around PAX east with "Hugs: Free" and "Deluxe Hugs: $1" signs pestering people this year. I have pictures.
Yes, two guys out of, what, 15,000? At CTcon, I observed roughly 30 unique "hug me" kids, and the attendance was about...6,000? The culture of a typical anime con will have a tendency to attract the "hug me" types of personalities; the culture of a typical gaming con has a much lower tendency to attract that type of personality.
I don't think PAX needs to ban the signs; the culture of gamers will simply make the signs a non-issue. If you don't give attention to the attention whores, they'll be marginalized.
EDIT: OK, so we agree that Otakon attendees are, on the whole, less mature than, say, PAX attendees, right? I mean, that's one of the reasons we're all sick of Otakon.
"Hug me" signs are fine when everyone is mature enough to handle them properly. The reason that Otakon needed to ban them was because their crowd is so goddamn immature that they couldn't handle them properly. CTcon suffers from the same issue.
Otakon has two Hetalia badges this year, axis and allies.
More evidence supporting our case. It is the staff, programming, and architecture of the convention space that set the tone for the culture and behavior of the attendees. Also, the precedent of previous years of the same convention creates a momentum that must be escaped. If I wanted to, I could start an anime convention today, and it could be totally serious. I wouldn't have to ban signs. I wouldn't have to make it 21+ like that other convention in RI did. I just have to set the programing and atmosphere configured a certain way, and also have the staff behave in a certain way.
Imagine if you are a punk kid. You see a web site for an anime convention. The web site is sharp and professional. It doesn't have cutesy anime pictures on it. They mail you a very professional badge in a very professional envelope. When you get to the convention, the staff are all wearing suits with ultra-professional name badges. The staff talk to you the way that highly trained hotel staff do. "Good morning sir. Welcome to the convention. Shall I warm sir's crack pipe?"
Every event will be managed professionally. You walk in and sit quietly. The lighting of the room is dim, with a small light on the stage. Right before the event starts the room lights are darkened, the stage lights go up. Maybe some music. Someone from the convention introduces the event, even if it's just a movie, the event then happens. After the event you are thanked for coming. Maybe some announcements are made. The lights reset.
Imagine this same thing applied to every aspect of the convention. No matter the subject matter, the behavior of the attendees will be modified. The tone has been set, and it remains set. The attendees will conform. That's how this shit works. The convention as a whole both shows and tells the attendees what to do, and how to do it. Otakon tells them to get stupid. PAX tells you to sing Bohemian Rhapsody down the hallway.
I recall reading a story on this very forum about some awesome spin the bottle at a convention. To that I say way to go. For us, it's moronic. For a teenager, it's a rite of passage.
ACTUALLY, I was in charge of that hallway and I let it go on but I kept watch that it didn't get out of hand but it was also in a room we were not actively using at the time and so was out of the way. The head of Security however did not take my live and let live attitude about it however.
For me as someone who helps organize a convention, the signs need to be banned because of a few very important to a con reasons. The first being liability (we have cases of older guys feeling up younger attendees) and the second being that it does create an atmosphere that is downright creepy and moves away from the family atmosphere that we attempt to foster........ Maybe a solution is to have a "I have a sign" meet up and make it the one area you can have a sign and use it EXCEPT i figure that would turn into an orgy pretty fast...
Yes, two guys out of, what, 15,000? At CTcon, I observed roughly 30 unique "hug me" kids, and the attendance was about...6,000? The culture of a typical anime con will have a tendency to attract the "hug me" types of personalities; the culture of a typical gaming con has a much lower tendency to attract that type of personality.
Anime cons didn't have a sign problem initially. It started with one person being clever. The next year, there were a handful. The year after that, there were hundreds. The year after that? Thousands.
That culture grew. It was fostered. Cultivated and refined into the mess that it is today. The conventions themselves made that culture, much how Heroes of Newerth made that sea of fuckheads that is their community.
Mark my words: the signs at PAX East this year were the beginning. The only difference will be how the culture of the con cultivates or kills it.
You can do really awesome things with signs at cons, just because some people are annoying about it, does not mean you should ban the whole medium. Think about it, it is like banning podcasting because Anime Pulse exists, you would lose so much to get rid of something small. For example; last con I went to, I met some really cool people through some pokemon trading signs. I also found some guys playing a Action Castle type game with signs, a pad of paper and a sharpie.
I don't think PAX needs to ban the signs; the culture of gamers will simply make the signs a non-issue. If you don't give attention to the attention whores, they'll be marginalized.
This should be the stance of every type of con everywhere. If you ignore/mock a free speech problem person, with free speech, you can make them irrelevant very quickly.
Otakon has two Hetalia badges this year, axis and allies.
...
Actually I think this was a pretty cool move, it would be like having a bliz con where everyone got to pick a side... You could do some fun events with that aspect.
You can do really awesome things with signs at cons, just because some people are annoying about it, does not mean you should ban the whole medium. Think about it, it is like banning podcasting because Anime Pulse exists, you would lose so much to get rid of something small. For example; last con I went to, I met some really cool people through some pokemon trading signs. I also found some guys playing a Action Castle type game with signs, a pad of paper and a sharpie.
When I say "Banning Signs" I am specifically talking about solicitation of affection signs. Not "Looking for group" type stuff... Which is actually how it started but evolved into the evil it is today...
Think of it like this. You've got a crazy misbehaving kid. You take them to McDonald's. Mommy I want the toy! Mommy I want to go on the playplace! Not until you finish your meal. Wahhh!
Take the same kid to Capital Grille or a Mandarin Hotel. In that environment, a normal kid is intimidated. They see all the staff and other adults dressed very very nicely and acting serious. The decor and atmosphere modify the behavior of the people. You can do this no matter what kind of food the restaurant is serving, so you can also do it no matter what the convention is about.
The only difference will be how the culture of the con cultivates or kills it.
Of course. I'm just wagering that the culture of the con, created and driven by the attendees themselves, will create an environment that is inhospitable to that kind of immature bullshit. Otakon will almost certainly always need a rule that says "no signs" because the culture of the con created by the attendees will foster the growth of said signs.
The decor and atmosphere modify the behavior of the people.
Well, it won't do that for everyone. They have to adapt or die, basically. If you change Otakon from McDonald's to the Capital Grille, you will get kids who will act out, until they just stop going to the con. Those immature kids will still exist; they just won't go to Otakon.
Of course, that's what we want to do. We want to shape the crowd that comes to Otakon. You can't change the individuals, but you can change the con to attract a different sort of person. You'll still wind up attracting a greater proportion of shitty people, but I wager that the con will still be dramatically improved if you raise the bar.
Think of it like this. You've got a crazy misbehaving kid. You take them to McDonald's. Mommy I want the toy! Mommy I want to go on the playplace! Not until you finish your meal. Wahhh!
Take the same kid to Capital Grille or a Mandarin Hotel. In that environment, a normal kid is intimidated. They see all the staff and other adults dressed very very nicely and acting serious. The decor and atmosphere modify the behavior of the people. You can do this no matter what kind of food the restaurant is serving, so you can also do it no matter what the convention is about.
It's kind of a sin really because I agree with what you are saying. Anime Conventions went the grow quickly route of letting anything go and keeping things light. A truely awesome conchair would do this for a few years with an eye to slowly grow the convention up with the people around them. PAX had an advantage of already having an older fan-base that "grew up" with them. There are probably as many 30 year olds interested in Penny Arcade as there are 15 year olds. If I was the con chair of Otakon, I'd be trying to "grow up" the convention now that I've hit my peak population cap. Every year you're convention attendees get older and their tastes get more sophisticated. Video games have it easier because they have grown up with their audience. While I don't believe Anime has grown up (in the US) with it's audience. Then again as long as Anime keeps bringing in the young folks there is not a big need to grow the convention up and you'll have fans like us who eventually grow out of the convention.
That being said, as the head of panels for Zenkaikon I am following this route, we still need to bring in the kids but over time we need to attract the class but over time as our own attendees mature.... Which leads to the point that this is really hard to do especially if you have high staff turnover.
Those immature kids will still exist; they just won't go to Otakon.
I think you will be very surprised as to how many still show up. It's the same Admiral Akbar strategy that has been working for us for so long. You just have to get them in the door, then they're hooked.
If you showed them in advance that the convention was all Capital Grille, they might think they don't want to go, and probably won't. However, if you actually get them to go, and then surprise them, they'll try it. They're already there. They're not going home. Then once they try it, you win them over immediately, almost every time.
Think about how many former Narutards listened to Anime World Order, and now they know the names of anime directors and such. Think about the kid at Connecticon with the Kingdom Hearts key. He wanted to go to cosplay court case, I sent him to Action Castle, and his mind was opened. Think about those Magic: The Gathering kids at Anime Boston who I got to play Blokus, and they loved it. I've got a bunch of emails from people who listened to Anime Pulse or Otaku Generation telling me they stopped once they heard our show. Let's not forget the D&D; kids, including myself, who switch to the BW after one round with The Sword. Or how about the superhero comic nerds who flip on manga as soon as you actually get them to read a Naoki Urasawa.
A punk kid walking down the street will never walk into the Capital Grille on his own. But if you can get him to go in there just once, he'll come back every chance he gets, as much as he can afford it.
The main point here is that it has nothing to do with whether or not you have an anime con or a gaming con. The subject matter has absolutely nothing to do with attendee behavior.
A punk kid walking down the street will never walk into the Capital Grille on his own. But if you can get him to go in there just once, he'll come back every chance he gets, as much as he can afford it.
Well, that analogy is good except I would never go to the Capital Grille ;-p
As someone that has been going to many kinds of cons for ten years, let me tell you something:
Anime cons have always attracted younger attendees on average. The programming at Sci-Fi type cons tends to be geared towards professional development, which attracts those adults and fans trying to break into the field. Yes, there are young'uns, but there are also adults to balance. The kids tend to behave in a more mature fashion, possibly because they are hanging out with adult friends. Anime cons where there is a significant component of professional development programming will have a slightly more mature audience. However, because of the difference in the demographics (not many novelists in the anime field, for instance) of the professions available, the sample of potential pros is still smaller or anime than for sci-fi type stuff.
If you build it, they will come. Provide programming that adults not only enjoy, but desire. Otakon is expensive, but still cheaper than cons like Dragon. However, Dragon offers myriad panels by pros and an insane amount of networking potential. It is crucial for professional development for people in the fields represented. I have many friends who have gotten book deals from going to Dragon. I don't know many people who have grown professionally from Otakon... at least not directly. It's definitely been a learning experience.
The subject matter has absolutely nothing to do with attendee behavior.
So the activities in which we choose to engage indicate absolutely nothing about our personality traits? You are objectively incorrect if that's your argument.
My argument is this: different activities attract different types of personalities. Gaming is inherently a challenge-focused activity; ergo, the people who are attracted to gaming will have a greater tendency to seek out challenges and challenge other people. Gaming has a low barrier to entry, but the inherent challenge focus will separate people based on their responses to challenge and conflict.
Anime is not inherently challenge-focused; ergo, it will have a tendency to attract a wide range of people, both challenge-focused and not-challenge-focused. Anime has a low barrier to entry, but because of the lack of inherent challenge, it will not separate people based on the responses to challenge and conflict.
If you take a representative cross-section of people who are primarily gamers, they will tend to have more in common with each other in terms of personality and interests than a similar representative cross-section of people who are primarily anime fans. Once you get past the "OMG I LIKE ANIME," anime fans tend to have a lot less in common with each other than other forms of geekeries.
The result is that an anime con will have a lower overall maturity level, because people who cannot deal with challenges will find a home there.
You can mitigate this by providing a barrier to entry; this will create an environment which encourages a particular type of behavior, and in doing so, you can change the atmosphere of a con to the one that you want.
You must do this at an anime-focused con, because the geekdom itself provides no guidance. You do not necessarily need to do this with a gaming-focused con, because gamers will tend to self-organize.
EDIT: Oh, right. Challenges. This argument hinges on the idea that seeking out challenges forces self-assessment, which in turn leads to maturation. People who consistently avoid challenging themselves never grow or develop, and are thus on the whole less mature than those who do not seek challenges.
Gaming is not inherently challenge focused. The vast majority of gamers are playing games with little or no challenge whatsoever. Gaming definitely does not separate people, it brings them together. At what convention is there more togetherness than at PAX?
Almost everyone at an anime con is also a gamer. That same screaming Narutard probably plays just as may video games as he watches anime. You see them playing their CCGS in the hallway. Those same kids to go PAX. You just don't recognize them because they're behaving differently in a different environment.
Look no further than the Otakon video game room. There are people in there who identify primarily as gamers. They spend the whole convention entering tournaments. They might not even be anime fans at all. By your logic, that room should be just like a mini-PAX because it's full of gamers and not anime fans. Guess what, it isn't. You might say that at Katsucon it was. You would be right. But it has nothing to do with the fact that it was a room of gaming. It has to do with the environment.
Compared to gaming, anime is uber-niche. Look at the gaming industry. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people playing Madden, Call of Duty, WoW, Farmville, tabletop. You think the cross section of all that is going to have more in common than a cross section of the uber-niche USA anime fandom? You think my mom and some Starcraft dude (both gamers) have more in common than a hetalia fan and a mecha fan? Get real.
So the activities in which we choose to engage indicate absolutely nothing about our personality traits? You are objectively incorrect if that's your argument.
That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that regardless of someone's personality, their behavior at any given moment in time is heavily, and primarily, influenced by the environment. You don't change the behavior by changing the population. You don't move the barrier to entry and kick out "bad" people or bring in more "good" people. You take the same exact people, change the environment, and they change their behavior. It doesn't matter what their a fan of, or what their personalities are.
Kids act like adults when you treat them like adults. Adults will act like children if you treat them like children. If Otakon were to simply treat attendees like adults, you would see a surprising change almost instantly. Their only obstacle are the bad precedents they have set in years past.
How people behave at a convention has everything to do with the convention itself, and almost nothing to do with who they are or what they are a fan of.
I thought this part was the most informative of the article. "Comic book conventions mean getting close to artists and writers you admire, and finding that back issue you have been looking for for months in the half off bin. Anime conventions don't have any real schedule, other than the awkward panels put on by attendees. They are basically just giant gathering places for people to show off their elaborate costumes and hang out with friends. The age median of anime conventions seems to be much lower than comic book conventions, so instead of afterparties drowned in booze there are "raves" hosted at the convention. Occasionally there are voice actors, or Japanese bands flown in, but it is much more a social exercise and one giant party."
The vast majority of gamers are playing games with little or no challenge whatsoever.
Uh, yes it is. All games provide challenges, they just provide them at different levels. Puzzles, even easy ones, are still challenges. They may no longer be challenging to you, but it is their inherent challenge that attracts people to them. What is a game, Scott? It's a competition, and you can't have a competition without a challenge.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
You said:
The subject matter has absolutely nothing to do with attendee behavior.
Emphasis mine. I'm reading every word you write. You said "absolutely nothing." Saying that something is not a factor at all and saying that something is not the primary factor are two very different things.
And now your argument becomes incredibly inconsistent:
You don't change the behavior by changing the population.
You take the same exact people, change the environment, and they change their behavior.
OK Scott, these two statements are completely contradictory. The population at a social event is the environment of that social event. If you change the crowd, you change the environment. So, yes, you DO control individual behavior by controlling the population to which an individual belongs. This is really really really basic science, and one that is pretty well understood. What do you consider the "environment" of a convention to be? What controls the environment of a con?
You can only control individual behavior through groups to an extent, though; you can temporarily alter someone's behavior to suit your end, but there are people who are simply incompatible with certain social environments. Those people cannot be made to fit into the correct mold for the event, and so will either not attend the event, or will cause trouble when they show up.
You think the cross section of all that is going to have more in common than a cross section of the uber-niche USA anime fandom?
Yes, on average. Of course you can find people at the extremes that prove the point, but on the whole, most gamers have more in common than most anime fans, and it all relates back to their ability to deal with challenges.
EDIT: Also, I would contend that your mom's base has been invaded many times. Thus, she has a lot in common with the Starcraft player.
Many things people consider "games" today do not in fact provide any measurable challenge. This point was belabored at the Y+30 lecture we attended. The less the challenge, the more popular the game. Farmville is one of the most popular games in the history of gaming, and there is literally nothing you can do but "win." Farmville is the majority gamer.
Many things people consider "games" today do not in fact provide any measurable challenge. This point was belabored at the Y+20 lecture we attended. The less the challenge, the more popular the game. Farmville is one of the most popular games in the history of gaming, and there is literally nothing you can do but "win." Farmville is the majority gamer.
Yea, I think Pete is comparing the hardcore gamer to the casual anime fan. Funnily there are probably still more hardcore gamers than casual anime fans in the US...
Comments
It sometimes seems I'm the only person in the world who hasn't learned the lesson. Don't be your grandparents complaining about that "evil rock and roll music." Don't be your parents complaining about "those video games or that rap music." Let the kids be what the kids be, as long as it's safe and legal.
Don't say "Stop with the signs, it's against the rules." Say "Dude, really? This is your thing?"
I don't think PAX needs to ban the signs; the culture of gamers will simply make the signs a non-issue. If you don't give attention to the attention whores, they'll be marginalized.
EDIT: OK, so we agree that Otakon attendees are, on the whole, less mature than, say, PAX attendees, right? I mean, that's one of the reasons we're all sick of Otakon.
"Hug me" signs are fine when everyone is mature enough to handle them properly. The reason that Otakon needed to ban them was because their crowd is so goddamn immature that they couldn't handle them properly. CTcon suffers from the same issue.
More evidence supporting our case. It is the staff, programming, and architecture of the convention space that set the tone for the culture and behavior of the attendees. Also, the precedent of previous years of the same convention creates a momentum that must be escaped. If I wanted to, I could start an anime convention today, and it could be totally serious. I wouldn't have to ban signs. I wouldn't have to make it 21+ like that other convention in RI did. I just have to set the programing and atmosphere configured a certain way, and also have the staff behave in a certain way.
Imagine if you are a punk kid. You see a web site for an anime convention. The web site is sharp and professional. It doesn't have cutesy anime pictures on it. They mail you a very professional badge in a very professional envelope. When you get to the convention, the staff are all wearing suits with ultra-professional name badges. The staff talk to you the way that highly trained hotel staff do. "Good morning sir. Welcome to the convention. Shall I warm sir's crack pipe?"
Every event will be managed professionally. You walk in and sit quietly. The lighting of the room is dim, with a small light on the stage. Right before the event starts the room lights are darkened, the stage lights go up. Maybe some music. Someone from the convention introduces the event, even if it's just a movie, the event then happens. After the event you are thanked for coming. Maybe some announcements are made. The lights reset.
Imagine this same thing applied to every aspect of the convention. No matter the subject matter, the behavior of the attendees will be modified. The tone has been set, and it remains set. The attendees will conform. That's how this shit works. The convention as a whole both shows and tells the attendees what to do, and how to do it. Otakon tells them to get stupid. PAX tells you to sing Bohemian Rhapsody down the hallway.
For me as someone who helps organize a convention, the signs need to be banned because of a few very important to a con reasons. The first being liability (we have cases of older guys feeling up younger attendees) and the second being that it does create an atmosphere that is downright creepy and moves away from the family atmosphere that we attempt to foster........ Maybe a solution is to have a "I have a sign" meet up and make it the one area you can have a sign and use it EXCEPT i figure that would turn into an orgy pretty fast...
That culture grew. It was fostered. Cultivated and refined into the mess that it is today. The conventions themselves made that culture, much how Heroes of Newerth made that sea of fuckheads that is their community.
Mark my words: the signs at PAX East this year were the beginning. The only difference will be how the culture of the con cultivates or kills it.
Take the same kid to Capital Grille or a Mandarin Hotel. In that environment, a normal kid is intimidated. They see all the staff and other adults dressed very very nicely and acting serious. The decor and atmosphere modify the behavior of the people. You can do this no matter what kind of food the restaurant is serving, so you can also do it no matter what the convention is about.
Of course, that's what we want to do. We want to shape the crowd that comes to Otakon. You can't change the individuals, but you can change the con to attract a different sort of person. You'll still wind up attracting a greater proportion of shitty people, but I wager that the con will still be dramatically improved if you raise the bar.
That being said, as the head of panels for Zenkaikon I am following this route, we still need to bring in the kids but over time we need to attract the class but over time as our own attendees mature.... Which leads to the point that this is really hard to do especially if you have high staff turnover.
If you showed them in advance that the convention was all Capital Grille, they might think they don't want to go, and probably won't. However, if you actually get them to go, and then surprise them, they'll try it. They're already there. They're not going home. Then once they try it, you win them over immediately, almost every time.
Think about how many former Narutards listened to Anime World Order, and now they know the names of anime directors and such. Think about the kid at Connecticon with the Kingdom Hearts key. He wanted to go to cosplay court case, I sent him to Action Castle, and his mind was opened. Think about those Magic: The Gathering kids at Anime Boston who I got to play Blokus, and they loved it. I've got a bunch of emails from people who listened to Anime Pulse or Otaku Generation telling me they stopped once they heard our show. Let's not forget the D&D; kids, including myself, who switch to the BW after one round with The Sword. Or how about the superhero comic nerds who flip on manga as soon as you actually get them to read a Naoki Urasawa.
A punk kid walking down the street will never walk into the Capital Grille on his own. But if you can get him to go in there just once, he'll come back every chance he gets, as much as he can afford it.
The main point here is that it has nothing to do with whether or not you have an anime con or a gaming con. The subject matter has absolutely nothing to do with attendee behavior.
Anime cons have always attracted younger attendees on average. The programming at Sci-Fi type cons tends to be geared towards professional development, which attracts those adults and fans trying to break into the field. Yes, there are young'uns, but there are also adults to balance. The kids tend to behave in a more mature fashion, possibly because they are hanging out with adult friends. Anime cons where there is a significant component of professional development programming will have a slightly more mature audience. However, because of the difference in the demographics (not many novelists in the anime field, for instance) of the professions available, the sample of potential pros is still smaller or anime than for sci-fi type stuff.
If you build it, they will come. Provide programming that adults not only enjoy, but desire. Otakon is expensive, but still cheaper than cons like Dragon. However, Dragon offers myriad panels by pros and an insane amount of networking potential. It is crucial for professional development for people in the fields represented. I have many friends who have gotten book deals from going to Dragon. I don't know many people who have grown professionally from Otakon... at least not directly. It's definitely been a learning experience.
My argument is this: different activities attract different types of personalities. Gaming is inherently a challenge-focused activity; ergo, the people who are attracted to gaming will have a greater tendency to seek out challenges and challenge other people. Gaming has a low barrier to entry, but the inherent challenge focus will separate people based on their responses to challenge and conflict.
Anime is not inherently challenge-focused; ergo, it will have a tendency to attract a wide range of people, both challenge-focused and not-challenge-focused. Anime has a low barrier to entry, but because of the lack of inherent challenge, it will not separate people based on the responses to challenge and conflict.
If you take a representative cross-section of people who are primarily gamers, they will tend to have more in common with each other in terms of personality and interests than a similar representative cross-section of people who are primarily anime fans. Once you get past the "OMG I LIKE ANIME," anime fans tend to have a lot less in common with each other than other forms of geekeries.
The result is that an anime con will have a lower overall maturity level, because people who cannot deal with challenges will find a home there.
You can mitigate this by providing a barrier to entry; this will create an environment which encourages a particular type of behavior, and in doing so, you can change the atmosphere of a con to the one that you want.
You must do this at an anime-focused con, because the geekdom itself provides no guidance. You do not necessarily need to do this with a gaming-focused con, because gamers will tend to self-organize.
EDIT: Oh, right. Challenges. This argument hinges on the idea that seeking out challenges forces self-assessment, which in turn leads to maturation. People who consistently avoid challenging themselves never grow or develop, and are thus on the whole less mature than those who do not seek challenges.
Almost everyone at an anime con is also a gamer. That same screaming Narutard probably plays just as may video games as he watches anime. You see them playing their CCGS in the hallway. Those same kids to go PAX. You just don't recognize them because they're behaving differently in a different environment.
Look no further than the Otakon video game room. There are people in there who identify primarily as gamers. They spend the whole convention entering tournaments. They might not even be anime fans at all. By your logic, that room should be just like a mini-PAX because it's full of gamers and not anime fans. Guess what, it isn't. You might say that at Katsucon it was. You would be right. But it has nothing to do with the fact that it was a room of gaming. It has to do with the environment.
Compared to gaming, anime is uber-niche. Look at the gaming industry. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people playing Madden, Call of Duty, WoW, Farmville, tabletop. You think the cross section of all that is going to have more in common than a cross section of the uber-niche USA anime fandom? You think my mom and some Starcraft dude (both gamers) have more in common than a hetalia fan and a mecha fan? Get real. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that regardless of someone's personality, their behavior at any given moment in time is heavily, and primarily, influenced by the environment. You don't change the behavior by changing the population. You don't move the barrier to entry and kick out "bad" people or bring in more "good" people. You take the same exact people, change the environment, and they change their behavior. It doesn't matter what their a fan of, or what their personalities are.
Kids act like adults when you treat them like adults. Adults will act like children if you treat them like children. If Otakon were to simply treat attendees like adults, you would see a surprising change almost instantly. Their only obstacle are the bad precedents they have set in years past.
How people behave at a convention has everything to do with the convention itself, and almost nothing to do with who they are or what they are a fan of.
I thought this part was the most informative of the article. "Comic book conventions mean getting close to artists and writers you admire, and finding that back issue you have been looking for for months in the half off bin. Anime conventions don't have any real schedule, other than the awkward panels put on by attendees. They are basically just giant gathering places for people to show off their elaborate costumes and hang out with friends. The age median of anime conventions seems to be much lower than comic book conventions, so instead of afterparties drowned in booze there are "raves" hosted at the convention. Occasionally there are voice actors, or Japanese bands flown in, but it is much more a social exercise and one giant party."
And now your argument becomes incredibly inconsistent: OK Scott, these two statements are completely contradictory. The population at a social event is the environment of that social event. If you change the crowd, you change the environment. So, yes, you DO control individual behavior by controlling the population to which an individual belongs. This is really really really basic science, and one that is pretty well understood. What do you consider the "environment" of a convention to be? What controls the environment of a con?
You can only control individual behavior through groups to an extent, though; you can temporarily alter someone's behavior to suit your end, but there are people who are simply incompatible with certain social environments. Those people cannot be made to fit into the correct mold for the event, and so will either not attend the event, or will cause trouble when they show up. Yes, on average. Of course you can find people at the extremes that prove the point, but on the whole, most gamers have more in common than most anime fans, and it all relates back to their ability to deal with challenges.
EDIT: Also, I would contend that your mom's base has been invaded many times. Thus, she has a lot in common with the Starcraft player.