ORIGINAL: Bucks
Mike,
I started in about 1983, but mainly RPG conventions, AD&D mostly. I ran a Harpoon demonstration in 1988 at a convention here in Melbourne, Games '88. That covered the entire game based hobby industry. Everything from Chess to board games and minis stuff.
Unfortunately the convention scene in Australia is almost completely dead... My opinion on that is computer based gaming killed off a large part of the social side of gaming and with our small population (21 mil) in a country the size of the continental United States, it's not always easy to make running a Convention "pay".
Things change as technology progresses. I'm hoping there is a resurgence with Ipads and vassal like apps however its going be tough to sell anybody good at that sort of thing as obviously the money is in more popular apps. I'm hoping a few publishers might have the moxie to find a few devs that have the skillsets to do it (Matrix...hint..hint).
I very much agree that social aspect of the game table is dead with computer gaming which sucks as I think if people got to know each other a little better there be a few less tough guys around here.
Btw Great to have you back and contributing, I think the "New Deal" that's in place at this forum seems to be starting to make this a little less dysfunctional.
We'll see Darren. I'm not really down with the whole Lord of the Flies vibe around here and the only thing I really care about playing a few good games and hanging out with some people. I will say that production probably needs to move beyond forum posts to truly seal the deal and the jury's still out if those that have stepped up will come though. I continue to hope for the best though.
Thanks for asking[8D]
