Which is fine, really- after all, one of my biggest hobby industry platforms is that it is all about building community. But what was not fine, to me at least, was that the show seemed almost terrifyingly unprofessional. It felt more like an exhibitor’s hall at a science fiction convention than an industry trade show and it was kind of shocking how small the event actually was- a lot of major publishers (notably Games Workshop, Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro, and GMT Games) weren’t even there, and some publishers who you’d think were fairly major players (such as Rio Grande Games) barely had anything resembling a trade show booth. Rio Grande was a standout because their booth consisted of a tiny black-and-white sign and an assortment of their games laid out on white tablecloths, pieces scattered around like a bunch of kids had their way with them. There were plenty of upstart, fly-by-night companies hawking doomed games clearly more geared toward a gift or novelty market. A couple of publishers woefully tried to convince us that their CCG was the next big thing. Attitudes were lax and it felt like the whole thing was really kind of pointless.

There were definitely some standouts in the exhibit hall though; this was the first year that Fantasy Flight Games really exploded with a bunch of extremely high quality, big license games and their booth was exactly what you’d expect from a trade show display: big, professional graphics, organized and staffed displays and product demos, and a definite buzz of excitement. The company was announcing the first of its Games Workshop reprints, including FURY OF DRACULA and WARRIOR KNIGHTS, as well as DESCENT, BEOWULF, and several other titles. Days of Wonder was showing a prototype of their smash hit SHADOWS OVER CAMELOT and their boss Eric Hautemont turned out to be a very professional and intelligent guy that made me wish more Europeans were involved in the US industry. Privateer Press was demoing the hell out of WARMACHINE, using the old trade show tactic of nearly naked women to lure dumpy, middle-aged store owners to act like they’re paying attention to a five minute demo.

There was a gaming room but it was strangely under populated with a just a couple of tables, mostly folks trying desperately to get someone to sit down and play either their prototype or their recently published game. It was pretty grim- not only because it seemed like no one was interested in playing games, but also because it just felt lifeless and uninteresting and no fun at all. I’ve heard that after hours the GAMA game room gets more interesting, but when you’re in Las Vegas do you really want to sit and play CARCASSONNE when you can be out playing Craps and Roulette for real money, enjoying drinks on the house the whole time?

We walked around, picked up a bunch of flyers, and I managed to score a few review copies of a couple of games. Dollar Bill was particularly interested in the FLAMES OF WAR miniatures line and since they were there (all the way from New Zealand), we wound up working out a huge rack deal with them and we also wound up ordering the full line of Vallejo miniature paints which were the best in the business and at that time tough to get through our usual distributors. We called back to the Barrister to let him know we were spending something like $4,000 and he, of course, went ballistic. Dollar Bill countered the Barrister’s objection by saying that he’d just put the money up out of his own pocket. That story arc will come to fruition later…just don’t forget our prologue with the slot machine.

We wound up sitting in on a number of seminars, workshops, and lectures about a variety of game industry topics like why in-store gaming is bad for business (I thought it was going to be a comedy routine), how to build a brand name (hosted by “Cheese Weasel Logistics”, clearly a successful brand), and what online gaming will do to the industry (prognosis: bad). Dollar Bill and I wound up passing notes and trying to make each other laugh through the presentations. By this point, even our airs of professionalism and serious business had all but collapsed. The advice and business aphorisms being dispensed tended to be either Marketing 101 sort of material or just plain common sense. I couldn’t believe that people get far enough in the hobby game business to make it to GAMA and feel the need to have some pony-tailed 20 year old “CEO” of an online hobby business tell them that they need to put up signs advertising products in their store.

Now, while we were slowly losing our resolve, my wife was out and about in Las Vegas. She hates gaming of any description, but apparently Las Vegas gaming is a different thing altogether. I’m sitting there with Dollar Bill in the aforementioned Cheese Weasel Logistics seminar and I get a call from her. She hit the jackpot on a slot machine at Caesar’s Palace, to the tune of $2,000. I didn’t know what to say. I was at this stupid trade show goofing off and she was breaking Vegas. But wait, that’s not all. An hour and a half later she calls again. She hit the damn jackpot again on another machine, this time winning $3,000. I couldn’t believe it. She made more money in a two hour period than a lot of people at this trade show ever would from the hobby. But oh, later than night she wound up winning another $500 from various other machines, which I promptly threw away at the Craps table. The lesson here? If you want to make money, hire my wife to play slots for you in Vegas. Don’t open a game store.

The last day of GAMA rolled around and we rolled out of bed to go hit it one more time, just to see if we missed anything- plus Fantasy Flight was handing out free copies of INGENIOUS so we wanted to get a couple to demo in the store. Our wardrobe had downgraded at that point to shorts and T-shirts. I think we stayed for about an hour and realized that we were just wasting time- there just wasn’t anything left to do, and we felt like we were already several steps ahead of the rest of the industry. GAMA is probably a good resource for some retailers and it’s definitely a good opportunity for publishers to get distributors and retailers to see their products, but the lack of professionalism and the “permanent vacation” attitude of a lot of people in the business make the whole affair seem terribly amateurish.

We returned back to Atlanta and brought with us a huge stack of literature that we thought the Barrister ought to look through—if not to guide purchasing decisions, then to let him see what all was out there, what the trends and fads were, and we hoped that he’d at least learn more about the hobby since by this point it was clear that he didn’t really know the business in which he was involved. He didn’t show any interest whatsoever in hearing about what we saw or had experienced, all he knew was that Dollar Bill spent $4,000 on new product. The day after we handed him this nicely organized package of advertisements, catalogs, and product lists we found it in the trash in the back room. He didn’t even give it a perfunctory look. At this point, I was pretty sure that he just didn’t care about the store unless it was making him rich.