Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne talks Gen Con 2024 news and goes over a few major announcements made at the convention.
Gen Con took place over this past weekend; there is generally not a lot of major news coming out of the show, unlike San Diego Comic-Con and other comic shows (see “SDCC News: Marvel Roundup”). This is primarily due to the fact that the gaming industry is not creator-driven (with a few exceptions), nor (again with a few exceptions) does it see significant interaction with the mass media.
The hobby game industry has seen a few crossovers with media (Stranger Things, Big Bang Theory, Candyland, and Battleship come to mind), but almost never do we see announcements of game-related movies and TV shows, certainly not at the level the comic industry sees. Those in the game industry just do not have the name recognition to generate media buzz when their association with a new project gets announced.
So far, the major announcements I have seen came from Wizards of the Coast concerning Magic: The Gathering (see “Magic the Gathering Offers Magic: The Gathering Arena Rewards“). Still pushing in-store standard format tournaments (which I do approve of the company doing), WotC will offer Arena rewards for each Standard tournament in which a player with a Wizards account participates. Nice idea and very cheap and likely easy for WotC to implement, and I always am in favor of promotions designed to move customers into stores. However, in order to make it work, WotC will have to both promote it to Arena players and provide promotional materials to stores, (especially some POS materials), to let players of physical Magic know about it. We can always tell players and make up signage, but a nice flyer does not hurt.
D&D 2024 Player’s Handbook. I see WotC has copies of the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Player’s Handbook on sale at Gen Con, a month before WPN stores will have it on the shelf. WotC does have a longtime record, dating back to the 90s, of releasing highly-anticipated D&D books at Gen Con, weeks before stores get them on the shelf. I even saw one person offering a copy for $150 plus $15 shipping and heard of a copy with an asking price of $500. Granted it is a limited Gen Con 2024 edition with a Gen Con 2024 bookplate, so collectors will probably want one of the 3,000 copies available (see “Wizards of the Coast Announces GenCon 2024 D&D 2024 Player’s Hanbook“). I remember talking with a WotC employee at Gen Con about 20 years ago regarding why WotC, given the company’s size, could not have day and date release for new products in stores concurrent with Gen Con. Paraphrasing his reply: “We like to make money, too.”
Dragonlance Legacies. Not something that will likely get much notice outside of the hobby game industry but Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman announced a new Dragonlance Trilogy, Dragonlance Legacies, a trilogy telling the story of the wizard Magius and his adventures with the Solamic Knight Huma, with the first volume releasing in 2026. Also, a hardcover omnibus (Dragonlance Chronicles) of the original trilogy will release next February. Hoping this introduces a new generation to arguably the greatest RPG setting ever.
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The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
Source: ICV2
