GAMA Trade Show 2008
Part 1: Doug McNair and Shane Ivey
By Avalance Press
May 2008

The GAMA Trade Show is an annual convention where game manufacturers can show off their goods to game stores and distributors. Today, Doug McNair and Shane Ivey tell their tales.

What Happens in Vegas?
by Shane Ivey

I’ve worked in the roleplaying/wargaming industry for about ten years now — and that’s not counting my years as a humble playtester and proofreader — but somehow this was the first time I went to the GAMA Trade Show.

	“You Are Here.” If you’re in Las Vegas, you’re in a casino.

It’s not hard to understand, really. GTS is the place for publishers and manufacturers to show off their goods to retailers and distributors. At Avalanche Press I’ve rarely dealt with stores or distributors, and outside Avalanche Press I’ve mostly made games that appeal to the kinds of tiny but dedicated groups of fans that make stores and distributors no money.

But these days I deal with stores and distributors more often than ever, so I thought it would be smart to give the GAMA Trade Show a shot. I was more than happy to help man the Avalanche booth.

At GTS you mostly meet three types of people: store owners, distributor reps, and fans who’ve come looking for early copies of upcoming games. Actually, you mostly run into just the store owners and the fans, because the distributor reps are all at meetings, angling for greater slices of the tiny hobby-game-industry pie.

One of the Bally’s bars. In Vegas, even the fuzzy little piggy that your daughter sent as a companion is a drunk.

The fans tend to be happy consumers. They’re überfans, the ones who pay hundreds of dollars to go to a show just to see what their favorite companies are up to. Überfans love to spend their money, and that makes them our favorite people in all the world.

The retailers are just as interesting to talk to, but they’re not always so happy. Some are thrilled to be there, thrilled to be selling our kinds of games. You get a few that come up to the booth and say things like “Just keep doing exactly what you’re doing. My customers love you.”

A few come up with tales of Wal-Mart poaching their business, videogames devouring the free time of prospective gamers, and every other kind of woe. With those folks all you can do is nod, commiserate — yes, I too wish the kids these days would leave the Wal-Mart videogame aisle and come play Panzer Grenadier — and pay close attention if they have any suggestions. After all, we’re there to help them sell our games.

	Vegas is just like Paris! Except with brighter lights. And more poker. And it never surrendered to Nazis.

Oh, and then you make sure they talk to Lys, because she’s smarter about that kind of thing than you are.

But the most fun part of GAMA Trade Show is not the fans or the store owners, it’s the other industry professionals. If you’ve worked in the hobby game field for any length of time you’ll find GTS packed with your colleagues, and even if you exchange email with them every week you only see them in person a few times a year. That means overpriced dinners, way overpriced booze (unless you’re gambling; the casinos are happy to get you drunk if you’re at a slot machine or a craps table), and all the industry gossip you can handle.

I’ll definitely be back in 2009.

Feathers Unruffled
by Doug McNair

This year’s journey to the Land of Feathered People was a big improvement over last year, from my point of view.

Knowing from experience that everything in Las Vegas is designed to squeeze every last cent out of you, my wife and I ditched all pretense of thrift and stayed at Caesar’s Palace. The difference from the place we stayed last year is apparent when you walk in the door: You can breathe. They’ve got a smoke-removal system so good you can stand three feet away from a lit cig and not smell a thing. And the customer service was unbelievable, right down to the bellman who approached the task of getting our bags with the energy of a track and field star.

The TV on the left looks harmless enough — if you haven’t listened to it playing the same five-minute clips over and over and over. On a nine-hour loop. For three straight days. Baseball bats do work on plasma screens, right?

The place is breathtakingly gorgeous, and I had a huge amount of fun just wandering around. But Paula was determined to have fun as efficiently as possible even if it killed her. She’d been working nonstop all week to meet deadlines and had gotten about one and a half hours of sleep in the previous 48 hours, but she was determined to hit the race and sports book and start placing bets. Luckily I was able to get her up to the room first, and within minutes of seeing a king-sized bed where she wouldn’t have to fight for space with a Rottweiler and a St. Bernard, she was sound asleep and stayed that way for about 16 hours. Next day she found out that they give you a free drink ticket every so often at the betting booth, so even though she lost on the ponies she thinks she came out ahead overall.

Having also decided to ditch all pretense of health-consciousness, I skipped the death-defying morning jogs down the Vegas Strip, where street signs actually beg drivers not to hit pedestrians. Instead, I boozed it up with my co-workers and feasted on excellent food with surprising price tags (we actually paid $36 for a couple of desserts!). Mike kept me up late planning out next year’s new offerings, which will include at least one brand new game series plus a much heavier emphasis on boxed games vs. book supplements (I think one of each per month is about right).

They cut Exhibitor Room time down to just two days this year but expanded each shift to nine hours. My sneakers are way too ratty to wear at a trade show, but I hadn’t worn those damn dress shoes since ditching my day job and I’d forgotten how much they pinch my toes. By 6 p.m. each day the left foot was pretty numb. I also shouted myself hoarse the first day just trying to talk to customers, since the game company across the aisle had a multimedia extravaganza going with the volume turned up to eleven.

	We dare you to come up with a question that Doug McNair can’t answer. We double dog dare you. Oops—he sold you the game while you were thinking it over.

But we had our nice spot by the front entrance again and foot traffic was good, especially when we did our daily drawing for free games from the Classic Wargames line. I got to see lots of retailers I’d met on the road at game cons, including Phil Thompson of Thompson Productions and Jeff Witt of The Keep (Fort Wayne, Ind.). Several other retailers picked up our line of games for the first time, including Board Game Barrister and Cavalry Games (both of Milwaukee, Wis.). Returning customers included The Source (St. Paul, Minn.), Le Valet d’Coeur (Montreal, Quebec) and Walrus and Carpenter distribution (New South Wales, Australia). If you live near any of them, please thank them for supporting us by supporting them with your patronage.

Though it all seemed to go by very quickly, I came back thoroughly de-stressed and ready to dive into the next batch of development projects. I just hope Mike springs for a bigger booth next year; with all these games in the pipeline there won’t be enough room for them on one table.

If you missed GAMA, never fear. Click here to see our latest special offers!