US Satellites ITS 14: No GenCon, and zero West Coast events?!?

Just read through the list of events picked for ITS 14, and super excited to get to play in some big US tourneys again soon!

However, I have some serious WTF questions:

WTF Number One: GenCon isn't on the list.

Am I missing something?

All respect to the other events, but not putting GenCon on this list would be a serious mistake, if I haven't just misunderstood. It's a really great event, and a cornerstone of the US gaming community. It's even more ridiculous because the CB team are always at GenCon in person.

[EDIT: It's also the home of the Invitational, an event that brings the best players of multiple other US tourneys together, the only Interplanetario-like champs tourney for Infinity outside Europe (unless Australia has one that I'm missing).]

I really, really hope that mistake gets fixed.


WTF Number Two: ZERO West Coast events?!?

No events west of Las Vegas at all... jesus.

That leaves almost HALF the country out, which might be understandable if the slots were limited... but out of 8 events, there are TWO events in the Baltimore/D.C. sprawl-zone. Not sure if our friends in Spain are aware that Baltimore and Washington D.C. are basically one city?

This is like booking 2 tourneys in the Barcelona to Tarragona area, another in Valencia (Boston), and then putting all the rest of them near Madrid except maybe one in Malaga, and then ignoring the entire west of Spain.

It's even worse than that analogy though, because LA, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle are huge cities with sizable playerbases, (and the main US Infinity distributor) and there's no event less than 10 hours of drive from us at all (okay Vegas is what, 3 hours from LA? Still BFE for the rest of us). Imagine that Barcelona was instead in Galicia, and you just decided to not have any tourneys near it, while putting some of them randomly in Albacete or something.

Galicia and the Pacific Northwest are pretty similar in placement and geography (and climate in many ways), and also similar in that we get skipped for events, tours etc. a lot by people who somehow think America is New York, D.C., and the Midwest. It sucks, and I think it's a weird figment of the European geographical perspective (I say this as someone who lived in Europe for a long time and constantly had Europeans tell me they disliked visiting America when they had only been to D.C. and New York, two of the least pleasant cities of our country IMO).

Big mistake, putting those events together and leaving the entire U.S. West Coast out of the mix, despite having 8 tournament slots.

Oh well. I hope the Rose City Raid makes the list next year, because it would cover an entire quarter of the country, and probably pull players from the whole West Coast. Or something else in California maybe.

I'm guessing there weren't a ton of submissions from the West, but leaving it out entirely sucks.

Remember CB, Oregon/Washington = Galicia. Please don't forget our entire west coast again next year. And GenCon is the most important overall gaming event in the U.S., leaving it without a Satellite is ridiculous.

 

Adepticon and Nova Open are both really important for the 40K-style miniatures industry, and having tourneys there makes sense. Definitely not trying to say don't do events there. [Also lot of Infinity player recruitment happens by poaching players from 40K, so letting them watch us play a better game might help draw in more players :)]

Uh, no. There are what, 60 players in the qualifying events for GenCon? It's two separate rounds of qualifiers iirc? And overall, there are more players playing Infinity at GenCon than either Adepticon or Nova Open: not having that be a satellite is ridiculous.

For the Invitational player numbers, you are comparing apples and oranges. The Invitational is the second round- like the second day of Interplanetario, of course it's smaller. But it -also- pulls in winners from multiple other tourneys, which I'd argue makes it an even more important event to include as a Satellite.

That's a decent point, but we're also talking about one of the biggest Infinity events in the US, with an Invitational that's closer to being like the Interplanetario than any other US event. 8 out of 10 players in the Invitational already know they have a shot at the free slot at Interplanetario. If you have a 10% shot at the Interplanetario, you probably want to already have bought a ticket to the event, have tickets and childcare figured out. It's nice if your registration ends up being free.

In the pretty-narrow category of modern scifi wargames conventions for players, GenCon stands somewhat below the other two, true (there are other cons much more prominent for other types of miniatures gaming, like Salute for historicals etc., iirc).

But GenCon is unique in the US for being a general tabletop games conference for both players -and- a very important industry deal-making/buying event, and in that respect I'd say it's even more important overall. The only times I've gone, I've been working (so had to watch the Infinity tourney with jealousy, then go back to shaking hands and shilling games).

That's part of why CB already have serious presence there, with a good-sized booth. Attracting players is important, and attracting FLGS buyers and distributors is also really important. A big tourney with some respect in the player community helps make that presence known to those who are looking at their business purchases for the year. And Infinity isn't CB's only product: as they clearly gather for the leap to a boardgame second focus, having that crossover market there is really important, as well as the usual miniatures-wargame nerds like ourselves.

For that reason as well, I'd argue that supporting GenCon's tourney is really important, and would warrant one of those 8 U.S. Satellite slots even if it meant D.C.-Baltimore not getting two tourneys for one city next year. Or rather, for this year even if it meant adding another Satellite slot to the schedule.

 

I mean, size isn't the only thing that matters (heh heh). The only one in France is outside Valence in what looks like a pretty small town. And the one on the island of Mallorca (which is the best Infinity event I've ever been to: seriously GO TO THAT ONE if you're playing in Europe!) is at a resort in a tiiiiiiny township. So it's definitely not about big cities not getting their due, or small towns getting a rad event honored.

It's more about not having any events in the Western US -at all-, and booking two events in the same mega-city on the East Coast.

 

There were two separate 30-player events as qualifiers, yes? That's 60 players in two events. Then the Invitational later in the weekend?

About 90-100 player slots between that and the evening events the last year I went iirc (2018). That's bigger than half the Satellites I've been to (Spain, France, Germany, US).

 

I’d imagine that would be true of most big tourneys the first year back after The Plague. Boardgame tourneys I attended or saw at Penny Arcade Expo West last weekend were at 25-50% capacity, used to generally be booked out. Hopefully next year will be better.

Anyways, probably more a function of the present moment in the world. All the other years at GenCon have been similarly large when I’ve checked.

 

I’d imagine Thursday evening is their smaller event. In 2018, both sessions seemed packed out when I checked, capacity in total 60 iirc not 30.

Again, this is the first year back after a plague. You want to judge an event with long standing, look at their attendance pre-covid, not this lame-ass year.

Walking through PAX this weekend (normally about 20K people over the weekend I think?), I’m guessing it was half the size it was in 2018z.

Hard year for cons, but things are getting back into swing. Wonder if Adepticon will take a similar hit.

Back on-topic, even if GenCon were “only” say 70 or 80 players total this year, that’s bigger than many Satellites. The Furor Teutonicous I went to in Germany (also a Satellite this year) was what, 30+ people I’m guessing? Great event, players both kind and skilled, tons of great beer. Totally worthy of Satellite status, and Germany has a fraction of the Infinity players found in the US.

Anyways, once you get to at least 30-40 players, size matters less for a tourney’s importance than geographical placement, production effort, and place in the nation’s gaming community. GenCon’s ITS has all of those in its favor. Leaving it out is crazy.

 

That’s like saying a Chicago event is effectively east coast, so we just shouldn’t have anything over there. Not a good argument for the nearest tourney to the coast which has 1/3rd the country’s populace being 7 to 16 hours’ drive from most of the major cities.

Love the LVO peeps, glad it’s happening, might go. It’s not the west coast, and we need a satellite out here. D.C.-Baltimore metro having two while there are zero on the west coast is frigging ridiculous (again though good for them, it’s just an unfortunate contrast).

Why not just make the Raid a Satellite then? Small is fine, and several Satellites in less-populous areas are small. The German Satellite I went to in 2018 (2017?) was about the Raid’s size (30-ish?). I’m sure the French Satellite will be 40 max (not a huge playerbase there, though the Lyonnaise are such good players that the skill level is at least as high as much larger countries).

I would be very, very curious to know if by he Raid applied for Satellite status.

In fact I’d love to know if anyone from the west coast applied at all.

If -no one- applied, the spread is understandable.

However if anyone west of Nevada applied with a decent pitch and got turned down, that’s a pretty serious oversight, error even.

Curious minds want to know. Did anyone from the West Coast apply? And if they did, why the hell would they have been rejected in favor of a crapton of events in a much-smaller area of the East Coast?

 

@Lesh' I’d love to but I’m not on FB anymore. I’ll ask a few folks directly.

Honestly not super wound up about it, just hoping that pointing out the oversight of the entire US West Coast and inexplicable failure to include GenCon might make those things less likely to happen again in the future.

 

Well explained, thanks @Savant !

Pardon my uninformed/inaccurate take on satellite status for GenCon. Now I get it.

It's very surprising to hear that the number of folks in an event -at one time- is a concern for qualification for Satellite status, instead of just how many people get to play over the weekend. I've always thought the solution of having multiple smaller qualifier events at the Con is a good one, both for schedule (I feel what you're saying about getting a full event in there!) and for space/cost restrictions.

That seems like it could be flexed by CB in weighing your event's eligibility: you do have what, 50-60 people or so in all your qualifiers on a year when things are normal? Who cares if they're distributed over two events, really? Especially when there's a really good chance for visibility to both players -and- FLGS buyers, industry, etc.

That said, I really hope you -do- apply for satellite in the future. With the level of production on the tables you guys do, the many events you host, and the fact that a really, really large part of the CB creative leadership is there every year... seems like you already have one of the most solid claims for a leading Infinity event in the U.S. The Invitational is also the only multi-tier event for Infinity in the U.S., isn't it?

Definitely not suggesting that other great events in the very-very-large Midwest not get awarded Satellite. It's mainly the two-tourney D.C./Baltimore setup that seems kinda ridiculous- but even there, it's definitely understandable that great events sometimes end up physically clustered one year. I'm just hoping it doesn't happen again next year, if it comes at the expense of the West Coast having -zero- tourneys.

[PS- As a nerd who went to GenCon and would have given [various important anatomy] to actually be able to play in the tourney but had to work instead, it's definitely not a huge sacrifice to spend 50% of gaming time on one's favorite game. Being able to do that -and still- get in random boardgames, demos, even another small tourney for something if they line up... that's the glory of GenCon! Anyone who doesn't feel like that has many other opportunities for tourneys in that part of the country too. Hoping to see you there in 2023.]