Gen Con 2010 Report

"What the hell just happened here?" — Brian Cross.

Gen Con 2010 has come and gone, leaving us thrilled, overwhelmed, and exhausted.

The reception for Eclipse Phase at the con was exceptionally positive. To our own amazement, the Eclipse Phase Core Rulebook walked away with three ENnie Awards. We received a Gold for Best Writing, a sound testament to the great work and ideas put in by our talented authors (Jack Graham, John Snead, Rob Boyle, Brian Cross, Davidson Cole, Lars Blumenstein, and Tobias Wolter). We also received Silvers for Best Cover Art (thank you Stephan Martiniere!) and Product of the Year. Considering that we were beaten by Pathfinder -- an unstoppable behemoth given its large fan base -- in both of those categories, we consider both of those to be absolute victories.

Beyond the awards, we received a continual barrage of appreciation from fans who loved the EP Core Rulebook and Sunward and couldn't wait to see more. We also sold (metaphorically and literally) quite a few new people on the game, and our sales numbers indicate we did quite well. At the end, our totals were 128 copies of Sunward, 89 Core Books, and 75 GM Packs sold. Thanks to our faithful booth volunteers for answering questions, explaining the game, and hooking new people!
Posthuman Studios: Rob, Jack, Adam, Brian
Outside of the Exhibit Hall, we had 80 players participate in our scheduled games. Almost all of our games were full, even taking in extra interested players in many cases. We heard of a couple of players who finished one game only to jump in on another with a generic ticket. A huge thanks go out to Josh, Ryan, and Brandon for running these games and handling the overflow.

The five adventures we ran during the con will all be released as PDFs in the future, so if you were a player in one of these games, we'd appreciate your playtest feedback! Send any notes you might have on missing information, game flow, and suggested tweaks to info [at] posthumanstudios [dotcom].

The EP Seminar on Friday also had a good turnout, giving us an opportunity to answer some questions in-depth and provide some behind-the-scenes details to interested folks. We also took the opportunity to poll those present on their gaming habits, and were pleased to see that the majority gamed with a laptop, iPad, or netbook at the table, and over half used PDFs during game sessions and/or to prepare for them. A majority bought both books and PDFs, while next to none bought only PDFs.

Pitching/playtesting a new card gameWe also held a productive freelancer meeting during the con, solidifying some of the ideas for future books. Likewise, Posthuman also had a session of pitching new game ideas (not just RPGs) to each other, most of which were quite good. In fact, it's going to be a challenge deciding which games to prioritize and pursue over the next year.

There is much more to tell, but too much to cover here. We gave numerous interviews, talked to a number of interested freelancers, socialized with old friends, made new ones, tore up a dance club, finalized some licensing deals, and over all had one of our best Gen Cons ever. We're sad it's over, but we're already looking forward to next year and future conventions!
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kylleran kylleran's picture
Re: Gen Con 2010 Report
That last picture is real live game designers doing real live game design work. Games that will hopefully be coming soon brought to you by Posthuman Studios!
Rabbitz Rabbitz's picture
Re: Gen Con 2010 Report
Guys, your game is the best thing that's happened to science-fiction games in a long time. We run a small demo recently in our own (much more modest) con and not only were our games full, but we were asked by players to do an extra off-schedule game, and we actually had more players that we had planned for (we sleeved a couple of them with infomorphs running on ghostrider modules on the back of the head of other players). Congrats for the Ennies, extremely well deserved. :)
CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture
Re: Gen Con 2010 Report
I remember someone said that the EP Seminar might of been recorded and would be put online? Any truth to that?
Vierran Vierran's picture
Re: Gen Con 2010 Report
Wish i could have gone, but being in Australia there is this ridiculously large blue thing in the way :p.
urdith urdith's picture
Re: Gen Con 2010 Report
CodeBreaker wrote:
I remember someone said that the EP Seminar might of been recorded and would be put online? Any truth to that?
I second this. If anyone knows of the seminar existing in a recorded format and can fling it on-line I'd love to hear it. Finances prevented me from attending in person, alas, but I'd love to see the content. Maybe future sessions can be simulcast on streaming video. Questions can be submitted from across the globe as part of the teleconference. ^_^
Arathi Arathi's picture
Re: Gen Con 2010 Report
Once again congrats from polish gamers ^^