Car News

Great report.  For those not on this discussion list, it will appear in the August Newsletter.

You do bring up an old controversy which may be of interest to game historians.  Both Origins and GenCon claim to be the biggest game convention.  This is because they use two different measurements and don't give enough details to come to a common conclusion.  There are several differences, but the most critical is that of attendance.  If you register for one or all days, Origins counts you once, you are one person attending.  GenCon will count you for each day you registered, you were there on Thursday, and on Friday, and on Saturday, etc.  As a certified Municipal Recreation Director from the International City Managers Association , I am quite familiar with ways to inflate attendance figures to get more funding.  If both would use the same method - preferably GenCon's, since it would give information on which days are most rewarding - and we might have a useful comparison to find out which is really bigger.  This is of minor, but useful, importance since both of them dwarf all others - at least in the RPG department.

I have always suspected Al Gore's "appearance" on Futurama was due to his daughter being on that show's staff.  I further suspect it was an attempt to gain votes from the gamers who were repulsed by her mother's attack on our games.

I agree that the date change is ill advised.  This is the second major retreat from service to gaming - the first being when they located permantly in one spot.  Back when they rotated across the country, a large number of gamers who could not afford to travel across a continent, could at least have the experience  every nine years.  This was a major boost to RPG, and my own area has suffered from the lack of even a regional convention since.  Dallas in 1984 and Fort Worth in 1993 were both a big boost to RPG in North Texas and it has been declining since.  Both Origins and GenCon being in essentially the same part of the country has not helped either.