Between the 14th and the 17th of August this year was Gen Con one of the largest events in the board gaming calender. Gen Con is targeted by many of the largest board gaming companies as a place to announce their next big games and to release some of the most anticipated games of the year. The only other event which really holds the same kind of weight as Gen Con is Spiel in Essen, Germany.
As a board gamer with two small children and a very limited budget events such as these are pipe dreams at best. I, like thousands of others, took to Twitter and began watching the news of various announcements and unveilings flood in. At the same time I started to become aware of a counter movement taking place, a non-con if you will. Suzanne, a board gamer and contributor on The Dice Tower, along with a number of others had started discussing what everyone not in Indianapolis attending Gen Con was doing. Pretty soon the Gen Can’t hashtag was born and people began to share their plans for the convention weekend.
It was not long after that when people began to post pictures with humorous captions referencing their own weekend as if they were at a convention. Eventually this developed into a competition, initially it was full of funny and home made prizes in keeping with the Gen Can’t theme. I threw my hat into the ring and tweeted a few captioned pictures including the one below.
Just seen a fantastic King of Tokyo/New York cosplayer at #GenCant2014 or maybe it was Rampage. #GenCantContest pic.twitter.com/5Phq3T74YC — Chris Fenton (@CPfenton) August 14, 2014
This is a picture of my son taken last Christmas but which I thought fitted the theme really well.
It was around the time I sent this tweet that the contest really started to take off and soon major manufacturers including AEG and Zman Games started offering Gen Con exclusive games such as Doomtown: Reloaded for prizes. As well as these games gift vouchers were being offered as well as shout-outs and mentions on various pod-casts. What had started out as a bit of fun soon became a series of quite desirable prizes.
I was soon watching out for every piece of news regarding the contest and the prizes. I was particularly interested in Doomtown: Reloaded but unfortunately wasn’t available for international competitors. Suzanne set up a blog for Gen Can’t which included all the details of the competition. It was on this blog that she announced that the prizes had been grouped into bundles. She also used it to announce which entrants were semi-finalists.
As soon as I saw the line “These pictures made us laugh, aww and go hmm...” I knew my picture was on the list. Not that I want to be one of those parents but my boy is incredibly cute in that picture. Now it was a waiting game, I was checking the website numerous times a day until two days later a new post came up on the website announcing the winners. Lo and behold there I was at the top of the list, first of the three judges choice winners.
I was soon in possession of a copy of Tragedy Looper from Zman Games, a $20 Cool Stuff gift voucher from Weaponsgrade Tabletop (which bought me a copy of Coup), and was getting a shout out on the Boards Alive Podcast (Episode 9 if you are interested). I couldn’t quite believe my luck, as this blog proves I never win anything. I could only think of one way to show how grateful I was to all involved in the Gen Can’t movement and the contest. I dressed my son up in his monster outfit again and got him to say thank you to everyone.
Thank you. from Chris Fenton on Vimeo.
Chris Loses At! 