Quote from: King of Old School;270139In all seriousness, if you could put an octagon somewhere in the convention centre, and get both RE and Pundy to agree to participate in a head-to-head, no holds barred MMA match, I have no doubt that donor funds would pay Pundy's way to GenCon.

KoOS

I would gladly engage in a public debate against him, with the audience voting to judge the winner (on the sole condition that no one in the voting part of the audience be a publisher of any kind of RPG book or have ever been involved in the IPR/Forge Gencon booth).

I would even gladly establish that whoever wins gets to shatter the loser's knee with a baseball bat.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;270305Turned it around towards Chapter 11 bankruptcy, apparently.

Not perhaps a great achievement, any of us could do that

Yeah, all it takes is making a deal with Darth Vader and the Lucas Empire.

--Mike L.

Quote from: RPGPundit;270337I would even gladly establish that whoever wins gets to shatter the loser's knee with a baseball bat.

I think a gun that fires metal d20's would be cooler than a baseball bat.

Quote from: luke;270304I work with Peter. You won't find a business man who's more pro-gamer. His dedication to gaming humbles me. He's open-minded and always looking to try new games. His ability to turn his love of gaming into a business is inspiring.

I don't have a problem with the guy personally.  But I strongly disagree with the direction he's taken GenCon and would not want to see him stay in charge in the post-chapter-11 state of things (I always believe that the people in charge of a company that files chapter 11 should be fired as part of the process.  Why trust the same people who screwed things up in the first place to fix them?).  I certainly fail to see how he's an essential piece of things.

Quote from: luke;270304He took a creaking old con and turned it around. Made it more accessible, with more events and more room for all types of gaming and managed to make the whole enterprise profitable. Gen Con is profitable.

See, this is where my disagreements come in.  I don't think making the con more accessible to all kinds of crowds is a good thing.  Not because of some desire to maintain a pure subculture or anything, but just because I think it should be a gaming convention, not an "everything geeky" over-commercialized convention business.  See, I do not believe it should be overly profitable.  It should just be a fun get-together that pays for itself and/or a marketing expense for the industry players, not some kind of profit center mega convention.

The thing is, we already have a good example of how the "make it a mega convention business" already ruined one con.  That example is Comic-Con.  What used to be a cool comic book convention is now an over-commercialized mega-geek-convention where the movie studios are effectively crowding out the comic dealers.  Sure, it's more accessible and profitable now, but at the expense of completely ruining the traditional atmosphere.

Quote from: luke;270304Gen Con Europe (and all of the other international Gen Cons) are licensed shows. Gen Con itself doesn't manage them. Local convention organizing groups do all of the work.

Yeah, I know they are licensed now.  But originally, iirc, Peter managed them directly, and they were about as successful as Euro Disney's first few years.

Quote from: jgants;270353See, I do not believe it should be overly profitable.  It should just be a fun get-together that pays for itself and/or a marketing expense for the industry players, not some kind of profit center mega convention.

That's because you are not one of the investors or shareholders.   Drop $100,000 into the pot and your viewpoint on "overly profitable" will change.

It's not even greed.   When you dump cash into anything other than a bank or blue chips, you are always measuring the return against safer investments.

Quote from: jgants;270353The thing is, we already have a good example of how the "make it a mega convention business" already ruined one con.

How can it be ruined if the attendance is far greater than ever before?  Sure, it's not a comic book only convention anymore, but it has become an amazing mecca for four times as many fans compared to 20 years ago.  

Quote from: jgants;270164What exactly is it that Adkinson brings to the table that absolutely no one else can?

It is doubtful that GenCon would be able to find another Senior Executive with gaming business experience AND a deep love for games.  However, it sounds like they need a kickass CFO and some hardasses on the Board of Directors.