Games Expo: A noble idea that deserved to work
Games Expo, one of the two competing shows (where manufacturers try to get retailers to carry their product lines) has concluded. The other one, GAMA Trade Show, is next month. (ADB did not go to GX and does not plan to go to GTS, but is paying another company to show off our stuff. This isn't because we're broke or angry at anybody or don't like retailers; we just found that we don't get any new business after paying two thousand dollars to go to such a show.)
Games Expo, by all accounts, tanked, sanked, and stanked. There were about 150 retailers there of which about 75 talked to anybody beyond the top 10 companies. For most companies, that meant maybe ten new stores to talk to, little if any new business, and a financial disaster. A lot of unhappy companies are unlikely to buy booths at GX-08, assuming that GX did not lose so much money it closes after its first year. To be honest, Games Expo made it a point not to predict how many retailers would show up. I gave my prediction (half of GTS) and I was high.
Games Expo was the creation of my good friend, Mark Simmons, the guy who runs Games Quarterly Catalog. Mark created Expo because he saw an opportunity; many of the exhibitors at GTS were unhappy with the show, with how it was run, with how few retailers (that would talk to smaller companies) showed up, with how little new business they got. Someone who is not Mark's friend would push the theory that Mark (who used to be the executive diretor of GAMA until he got squeezed out in a power play) started Expo just to attack/destroy GAMA, but I prefer to think that Mark saw an opportunity to better serve the industry, to build a better mousetrap as it were. GAMA suggested that Mark put his show in the midwest or east coast (since those retailers never go to GTS) but that would put Mark and Games Expo competing with the very solidly established Alliance Open Houses in Indiana and Maryland, shows that are functionally identical to GTS anyway.
Mark's big theory was to get more business for Adventure Game (i.e., wargame and RPG) Publishers by bringing in new kinds of stores: toy stores, gift stores, stationary stores, chain stores, greeting card stores, museum gift shops. It was a great idea (although I was the one publicly saying it would not work as such stores would only be interested in the top three or four Adventure Game Manufacturers and would not pick up anything made by smaller companies) and deserved to work. It did not work. There just were no buyers from such stores. [Ok, I heard someone say that there was one such buyer in the building but he only talked to selected companies in individual private meetings and never set foot on the showroom floor.] What did show up was a small slice of the stores that normally go to GTS, which means (since they won't pay to go to two stores) that GTS will take a financial hit and have fewer retailers. Basically, manufacturers got to spend the money this year going to two shows to talk to the same people who would have been at GTS anyway if it was the only show.
What will happen to Expo? I don't know, but if my good friend Mark Simmons ignores my advice to quietly cancel it, I suspect he will lose money and GX-08 may close before it opens. After this year, there is just no confidence that Mark can bring in new buyers, and I doubt if very many of the exhibitors this year will exhibit next year. I cannot imagine how Mark could lure them back. Allow me to repeat. Games Expo was a bold new idea and deserved to work, but it did not. I hope that Mark will swallow his pride and give it up.
But what does that mean for GTS? Will the manufactures all go back next year, or will too many of them start to question just how much business they ever got from GTS and wonder if they should bother? Some have long said that GTS exists for manufacturers with money to burn, manufacturers who feel they have to do it (to show retailers that they are still in business), and manufactuers who have bought into the classic marketing scam that you have to keep pouring money into marketing even when you see no results. Another of my friends, the greatest marketing guy in the wargame industry, says that GTS is all about talking to the 150 most successful retailers, the ones you already do business with, not about finding new business. I'm sorry, but I cannot afford to spend two thousand dollars and two weeks of my design time talking to customers I already have. I talk to those guys constantly by Email, and get more value from their wisdom and advice that way than I ever got at GTS. I can get more new stores paying a college intern to cold call retailers than I get at GTS. Will others find that to be true for their companies? Time will tell.
Games Expo, by all accounts, tanked, sanked, and stanked. There were about 150 retailers there of which about 75 talked to anybody beyond the top 10 companies. For most companies, that meant maybe ten new stores to talk to, little if any new business, and a financial disaster. A lot of unhappy companies are unlikely to buy booths at GX-08, assuming that GX did not lose so much money it closes after its first year. To be honest, Games Expo made it a point not to predict how many retailers would show up. I gave my prediction (half of GTS) and I was high.
Games Expo was the creation of my good friend, Mark Simmons, the guy who runs Games Quarterly Catalog. Mark created Expo because he saw an opportunity; many of the exhibitors at GTS were unhappy with the show, with how it was run, with how few retailers (that would talk to smaller companies) showed up, with how little new business they got. Someone who is not Mark's friend would push the theory that Mark (who used to be the executive diretor of GAMA until he got squeezed out in a power play) started Expo just to attack/destroy GAMA, but I prefer to think that Mark saw an opportunity to better serve the industry, to build a better mousetrap as it were. GAMA suggested that Mark put his show in the midwest or east coast (since those retailers never go to GTS) but that would put Mark and Games Expo competing with the very solidly established Alliance Open Houses in Indiana and Maryland, shows that are functionally identical to GTS anyway.
Mark's big theory was to get more business for Adventure Game (i.e., wargame and RPG) Publishers by bringing in new kinds of stores: toy stores, gift stores, stationary stores, chain stores, greeting card stores, museum gift shops. It was a great idea (although I was the one publicly saying it would not work as such stores would only be interested in the top three or four Adventure Game Manufacturers and would not pick up anything made by smaller companies) and deserved to work. It did not work. There just were no buyers from such stores. [Ok, I heard someone say that there was one such buyer in the building but he only talked to selected companies in individual private meetings and never set foot on the showroom floor.] What did show up was a small slice of the stores that normally go to GTS, which means (since they won't pay to go to two stores) that GTS will take a financial hit and have fewer retailers. Basically, manufacturers got to spend the money this year going to two shows to talk to the same people who would have been at GTS anyway if it was the only show.
What will happen to Expo? I don't know, but if my good friend Mark Simmons ignores my advice to quietly cancel it, I suspect he will lose money and GX-08 may close before it opens. After this year, there is just no confidence that Mark can bring in new buyers, and I doubt if very many of the exhibitors this year will exhibit next year. I cannot imagine how Mark could lure them back. Allow me to repeat. Games Expo was a bold new idea and deserved to work, but it did not. I hope that Mark will swallow his pride and give it up.
But what does that mean for GTS? Will the manufactures all go back next year, or will too many of them start to question just how much business they ever got from GTS and wonder if they should bother? Some have long said that GTS exists for manufacturers with money to burn, manufacturers who feel they have to do it (to show retailers that they are still in business), and manufactuers who have bought into the classic marketing scam that you have to keep pouring money into marketing even when you see no results. Another of my friends, the greatest marketing guy in the wargame industry, says that GTS is all about talking to the 150 most successful retailers, the ones you already do business with, not about finding new business. I'm sorry, but I cannot afford to spend two thousand dollars and two weeks of my design time talking to customers I already have. I talk to those guys constantly by Email, and get more value from their wisdom and advice that way than I ever got at GTS. I can get more new stores paying a college intern to cold call retailers than I get at GTS. Will others find that to be true for their companies? Time will tell.
Back to the point. Lots of manufacturers have been unhappy with GTS for a long time. Besides the vague grumbling about how the place is run (and the ever-improving GAMA team is doing better every year) there is the complaint they don't want to address, don't want to admit exists, that there just are not enough retailers there, not of the kind of retailers which will walk the entire showroom and talk to smaller manufacturers about products far more innovative and exciting than the corporate-packaged products from the biggest companies. Until GAMA solves that, GTS will never grow, it will shrink as more and more people realize that the Emperor really doesn't have any clothes on (that lots of manufacturers really don't get much new business at GTS).
Until now, I have had no solution to offer GAMA for this problem, but something said by someone in a game industry discussion group sounded brilliant. Change GTS from Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday to include a weekend day (or two). That would allow retailers who have day jobs (and more importantly, retailers who have wives whose day jobs support the store) to attend, while not keeping current attendees away. I think it would be worth trying.
posted by Federation Commander at 3:16 PM
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