Established in 1968 as the Lake Geneva Wargames Convention by Gary Gygax, who later co-created Dungeons & Dragons, Gen Con was first held in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. The convention was moved to various locations in Wisconsin from 1972 to 1984 before becoming fixed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1985, where it remained until moving to Indianapolis, Indiana, in 2003. Other Gen Con conventions have been held sporadically in various locations around the United States, as well as internationally.
In 1976, Gen Con became the property of TSR, Inc., the gaming company co-founded by Gary Gygax. TSR (and Gen Con) were then acquired by Wizards of the Coast in 1997, which was subsequently acquired by Hasbro. Hasbro then sold Gen Con to the former CEO of Wizards of the Coast, Peter Adkison, in 2002. Gen Con spent a short time under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, due to a lawsuit brought against them by Lucasfilm in 2008.[3][4] The organization emerged from bankruptcy protection a year later, while still holding its regularly scheduled events and became larger than ever.
History
Early years
Part of the exhibit hall space during Gen Con Indy 2010.
The International Federation of Wargaming (IFW) hosted a number of small regional conventions in the months following its foundation in 1967, including the first annual club convention in Malvern, Pennsylvania, in August.[5] Some IFW gamers in the Chicago area could not make the journey to Malvern, so they had an informal gathering that same weekend at the Lake Geneva, Wisconsin home of Gary Gygax.[6][7] Later this gathering would come to be referred to as "Gen Con 0". In 1968, Gygax rented Lake Geneva's Horticultural Hall to hold a follow-up IFW convention, the Lake Geneva Wargames Convention, later known as the Gen Con gaming convention.[8][9] The IFW, which Gygax co-founded, put up $35 of the $50 Horticultural Hall fee to sponsor this first Gen Con.[10][8] Almost 100 people attended. At the second Gen Con in August 1969, Gygax met Rob Kuntz[11] and Dave Arneson.[9][12][13] During these early conventions, the events centered around board games and miniature wargames.[8]
Gen Con's name is a derivation of "Geneva Convention", due to the convention's origins in Lake Geneva. It is also a play on words, as the "Geneva Conventions" are a set of important international treaties regarding war, the subject of many of the early games.[14] Starting in 1971, Gen Con was cosponsored by the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association.[15]
In 1985, Gen Con moved to the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center & Arena (MECCA) in Milwaukee,[17] due to a need for more space.[19] After the move, attendance steadily rose from 5,000 to a peak of 30,000 in 1995, making Gen Con the premier event in the role-playing game industry.[20][21] In 1992, Gen Con broke every previous attendance record for game conventions in the United States, with more than 18,000 people.[19] Gen Con briefly joined with its primary competitor, the Origins Game Fair,[19] and the two were run as a single convention in 1988. Wizards of the Coast debuted Magic: The Gathering at Gen Con in August 1993; the game proved extremely popular, selling out its supply of 2.5 million cards, which had been scheduled to last until the end of the year.[22] The ensuing collectible card game craze has been credited with generating the extra attendance that produced the 1995 record.[23]
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR in 1997, which was in turn purchased by Hasbro in 1999. Gen Con moved to the Midwest Express Center (now the Wisconsin Center) in 1998. In November 1999 Wizards announced that Gen Con would leave Milwaukee after the 2002 convention.[17]Peter Adkison, founder of Wizards of the Coast, purchased Gen Con from Hasbro in May 2002,[24] forming Gen Con LLC to run the convention. The first show under Adkison's leadership took place that August in Milwaukee.[25]
Indianapolis
The convention moved to Indianapolis in 2003. Peter Adkison attributed the move to the lack of hotel space, the convention center layout, and frequently broken escalators in Milwaukee's convention center.[24][26]
In Indianapolis, the convention, now called Gen Con Indy, continued to draw between 20,000 and 30,000 visitors each year, at the Indiana Convention Center.[27][28] Wizards of the Coast helped celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Dungeons & Dragons game at Gen Con Indy 2004.[29] In 2005 Gen Con Indy generated the most direct visitor spending of any annual convention in Indianapolis.[30]
Adkison also restarted the convention in California, this time named Gen Con SoCal. Smaller than its mid-western counterpart, it drew approximately 6,300 attendees in 2005,[31] making it the third-largest consumer hobby game convention in North America. It was held in the Anaheim Convention Center.
In spite of Adkison saying that he did not want Gen Con to become a "mini-E3" in 2003,[24] when E3 downsized in mid-2006, Gen Con LLC announced it would provide more show space for video game businesses.[32] Gen Con described their intention to "pick up where E3 [left] off".[33]
Also in 2006, Gen Con LLC ran the official Star Wars convention, called Star Wars Celebration, which was held in the banner years of the franchise.
The Indiana Convention Center completed a major expansion in 2011, in large part, to accommodate increased attendance to Gen Con, at a cost of over $275 million.[34]
International
Gen Con was held in Europe in the 1990s, with the first annual European Gen Con held in Camber Sands, Sussex, England, in 1990, and Gen Con Barcelona in Spain in 1994. The European convention was held in England for 8 years, eventually migrating from Camber Sands in the mid-1990s to Loughborough, where the final UK-based European event was held in 1997; the same weekend on which Princess Diana died. There was no European Gen Con in 1998, but it reappeared in Belgium in 1999 for a single year, before again reappearing in Paris for three years between 2006 and 2008. Benelux Gen Con was held in the Netherlands in 1998 and re-occurred there in 2000. Gen Con Barcelona occurred five years, in 1994–1996, 1999, and 2004. Gen Con UK was held between 1998 and 2005.[18] A Gen Con was held in Brisbane, Australia, in July 2008 and again in September 2009. A third Gen Con Australia was scheduled for 2010, but was cancelled.[35]
Online
When the COVID-19 lockdown prompted Gen Con to cancel the in-person convention in 2020,[36] it instead ran an online version.[37][38] While the in-person convention returned the following year, an online version was run concurrently until Gen Con ceased operations of Gen Con Online after the 2023 show.[citation needed]
Events
The Gen Con Indy 2003 exhibit hallCardhalla at Gen Con 2005
The convention features a large exhibit hall filled with game publishers, artists, and related businesses, wherein most attendees spend at least $100.[39] The only game to be on the event schedule every year since the convention's inception is Fight in the Skies,[8][40] later renamed Dawn Patrol.
The D&D Championship Series (formerly the D&D Open) is a long-running series of Dungeons & Dragons games at Gen Con, beginning in 1977.[15] The RPGA, beginning in 1981, has run large numbers of events at Gen Con, so extensive they have been given their own category. The RPGA events are primarily "Living" games where players create characters who persist between events. The RPGA first ran events in 1981.[15]
The Game Base 7 games library from the 2003 Gen Con Indy
In 1987 a games library was added from which attendees could borrow games.[15] Appearing in 1994 was the first Magic: The Gathering World Championship, won by Zak Dolan, who defeated France's Bertrand Lestrée in the finals.
Gen Con has featured a number of events that raise money for a variety of charities. These include Cardhalla, in which donated cards are used to build a large city. Attendees are then invited to throw coins at the city to destroy it. The coins are collected for charity. Cardhalla was first run in 1999. The gaming group NASCRAG has run Dungeons & Dragons events at Gen Con since 1980. NASCRAG events sometimes donate their ticket fees to charity. The games run tend to be humorous. The Gen Con Live Games Auction is another long-running event, though the majority of the Auction (including the Consignment Store) is not run for charity.
Original editor of Dragon Magazine, Tim Kask, runs a Dungeons & Dragons Game at Gen Con 2009.A colossal D20 and nearly-as-colossal D8 at Gen Con 2007.
The EN World RPG Awards (the ENnies) are an annual awards ceremony devoted to role-playing games. Established in 2001, the ENnies have been hosted at Gen Con Indy since 2002, and are organized and owned by EN World, a D&D/d20 System news website.[41]
True Dungeon is an immersive life-sized dungeon crawl live action role-playing game (LARP) run at Gen Con since 2003, featuring a series of puzzles and scenarios designed to recreate a D&D environment.
Issues
2008 was a tumultuous year, legally, for Gen Con LLC. On January 10, Lucasfilm filed a lawsuit against them, claiming breach of contract, conversion, and unjust enrichment over Celebration IV, held in 2006. The suit also claims Gen Con failed to give the money raised at a charity auction held at the event to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.[42] Gen Con filed a counter-suit claiming Lucasfilm had no basis for their claims and owed money to Gen Con.[43]
On February 15, 2008, Gen Con LLC announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing "significant unforeseen expenses associated with ... externally licensed events".[3] As a result of the bankruptcy filing, the Lucasfilm lawsuit was delayed until November 19, 2008.[44] Gen Con Indy 2008 was held as planned.
On November 20, 2008, a letter of intent to purchase Gen Con LLC's assets was filed with the bankruptcy court. It announced that a to-be-formed company called Gen Con Acquisition Group would purchase Gen Con LLC., for an amount equal to Gen Con LLC's outstanding debt.[45][46] Gen Con's president, Adrian Swartout, described the letter as "suspiciously cryptic" and concluded that the offer "is not in the best interest of our creditors".[47] Gen Con rejected the hostile takeover bid, and the bankruptcy court allowed Gen Con to emerge from bankruptcy in January 2009, 11 months after it had entered Chapter 11.[47][48]
In 2008, Christian Children's Fund was reported to have turned down $17,398 from a GenCon Live Game Auction, during that year's Gen Con.[49] The donation was made in honor of Gary Gygax, who died in 2008, and was a frequent donor to CCF.[50] Some individuals within the gaming community expressed disappointment about the decision; author and game designer Rich Burlew, for example, called it "insulting,"[51] and the response by gamers led both the CCF and Gen Con to issue official statements explaining what had happened.[52] As a result of the misunderstanding, Gen Con chose to support a different charity.[50]
On March 23, 2015, Adrian Swartout sent a letter to Indiana Governor Mike Pence, asking the governor to reconsider his intent to sign SB 101, the so-called "Religious Freedom" bill that already passed both state legislatures. The bill would allow businesses in the state to deny service to anyone on religious grounds, with opponents of the bill stating that it would allow businesses to unfairly single out and discriminate against the LGBT community and other groups. Swartout pointed out in the letter that "Gen Con proudly welcomes a diverse attendee base, made up of different ethnicities, cultures, beliefs, sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities, and socio-economic backgrounds" from over 40 countries and all 50 states, and that welcoming such a "wide-ranging diversity has been a key element to the success and growth of our convention", as well as injecting "over $50 million dollars" annually to the local economy. Swartout stated that signing such a bill "will have a direct negative impact on the state economy and factor into [Gen Con's] decision-making on hosting the convention in the state of Indiana in future years," after the Indiana Convention Center had already completed a major expansion in 2011 to accommodate increased attendance to Gen Con.[34][53][54] Pence signed SB 101 into effect on March 26, 2015.[55]
In August 2022 when Indiana passed a near total ban on abortions, Gen Con tweeted a statement in support of abortion rights, and Gen Con president David Hoppe made the following statement: "Passage of Senate Bill 1 will have an impact on our stakeholders and attendees and will make it more difficult for us to remain committed to Indiana for our long-term home. We are committed here through 2026. We do have to think about what that means beyond that and, of course, we would have to look at what that means for the period up until that time."[56]
Timeline
Attendance at Gen Con conventions, based on the numbers given below:
↑ "...a weekend gathering of about a dozen aficianados...at the home of future game designer E. Gary Gygax". See Laws 2007, p.3.
↑ Gary Gygax is quoted as saying, "I rented the Horticultural Hall for a full 50 dollars. ... admission was one dollar. I had enough paid admissions to exactly cover the cost of the hall." "...there were only maybe 60 people..." See Laws 2007, p.5.
↑ Gary Gygax is quoted as saying, "...150 paid attendees". See Laws 2007, p.14.
↑ "Perhaps the thing to do is to spread the word so next year there are a lot more of us than this year's attendance figures of 1,957 ..." See Szachnowski 2005.
↑ Smith, Erika D. (2005-09-09). "Tourism: The last, but definitely not the least". The Indianapolis Star. Archived from the original on 2005-12-14. Retrieved 2007-08-09. Gen Con, Indianapolis' largest annual convention in terms of direct visitor spending, reported record attendance for its last trip to town for a while.
↑ Porter, Randy. "Gen Con 2005". Keeper of Ancient GenCon Lore. Archived from the original on 2006-12-21. Retrieved 2006-08-17.
↑ "Gen Con 2006: A Hit in its 39th Year". Gen Con LLC. 2006-09-06. Archived from the original on 2008-08-26. Retrieved 2006-09-21. This press release indicates "turnstile attendance was approximately 85,000". Turnstile attendance counts each attendee once for each day they return. For a four-day convention, this means approximately 21,250, if everyone attended all four days.
↑ "Qu'avez-vous fait à la GENCON?" (in French). Tric Trac Index du Forum. 2007-05-30. Archived from the original on 2009-02-20. Retrieved 2008-03-27. Pour infos, cette année entrées payantes + invités, la GenCon a eu un peu plus de 4200 visiteurs. [For your information, this year's paying and invited entries, GenCon had a little over 4200 visitors.]
Peterson, Jon (2012). Playing at the World. San Diego CA: Unreason Press. ISBN978-0615642048.
Szachnowski, Lucya (2005-11-01). "Gen Con UK 2005"(PDF). Flagship. No.116. Birmingham, UK. p.9. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2008-04-10. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
Ernest Gary Gygax was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson.
Greyhawk, also known as the World of Greyhawk, is a fictional world designed as a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. Although not the first campaign world developed for Dungeons & Dragons—Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign predated it by about a year—the world of Greyhawk closely identified with early development of the game beginning in 1972, and after being published it remained associated with Dungeons & Dragons publications until 2008. The world itself started as a simple dungeon under a castle designed by Gary Gygax for the amusement of his children and friends, but it was rapidly expanded to include not only a complex multi-layered dungeon environment, but also the nearby city of Greyhawk, and eventually an entire world. In addition to the campaign world, which was published in several editions over twenty years, Greyhawk was also used as the setting for many adventures published in support of the game, as well as for RPGA's massively shared Living Greyhawk campaign from 2000 to 2008.
TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original publisher of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had been unable to find a publisher for D&D, a new type of game he and Dave Arneson were co-developing, so he founded the new company with Kaye to self-publish their products. Needing financing to bring their new game to market, Gygax and Kaye brought in Brian Blume in December as an equal partner. Dungeons & Dragons is generally considered the first tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG), and established the genre. When Kaye died suddenly in 1975, the Tactical Studies Rules partnership restructured into TSR Hobbies, Inc. and accepted investment from Blume's father Melvin. With the popular D&D as its main product, TSR Hobbies became a major force in the games industry by the late 1970s. Melvin Blume eventually transferred his shares to his other son Kevin, making the two Blume brothers the largest shareholders in TSR Hobbies.
David Lance Arneson was an American game designer best known for co-developing the first published role-playing game (RPG), Dungeons & Dragons, with Gary Gygax, in the early 1970s. Arneson's early work was fundamental to the role-playing game (RPG) genre, pioneering devices now considered to be archetypical, such as cooperative play to develop a storyline instead of individual competitive play to "win" and adventuring in dungeon, town, and wilderness settings as presented by a neutral judge who doubles as the voice and consciousness of all characters aside from the player characters.
Chainmail is a medieval miniature wargame created by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren. Gygax developed the core medieval system of the game by expanding on rules authored by his fellow Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association (LGTSA) member Jeff Perren, a hobby-shop owner with whom he had become friendly. Guidon Games released the first edition of Chainmail in 1971.
Mordenkainen is a fictional wizard from the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. He was created by Gary Gygax as a player character, only months after the start of Gygax's Greyhawk campaign and is therefore one of the oldest characters continuously associated with Dungeons & Dragons.
Peter D. Adkison is an American game designer and businessman who is the founder of Wizards of the Coast, where he held the role of CEO from 1993 to 2001.
Winter Fantasy is an annual gaming convention that takes place in the USA every January or February.
Jacob Franklin Mentzer III is an American fantasy author and game designer who worked on early materials for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. He was an employee of TSR, Inc. from 1980 to 1986, spending part of that time as creative advisor to the chairman of the board, Gary Gygax. He also founded the Role-Playing Games Association (RPGA) during his time with TSR.
Mike Carr is a writer and game designer.
The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was written by Gary Gygax and published by TSR in 1982 for the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) rules. The 64-page adventure bears the code "S4" and is set in the Greyhawk campaign setting. It is divided into two parts, a 32-page adventure, and a 32-page booklet of monsters and magic items. The plot involves the player characters investigating rumors of lost treasure. After traversing a wilderness and two levels of dungeons, the players face Drelnza, the vampiric daughter of long-deceased archmage Iggwilv.
Robert J. Kuntz is a game designer and author of role-playing game publications. He is best known for his contributions to various Dungeons & Dragons-related materials.
Lenard William Lakofka was an American writer of material for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Although never a formal employee of TSR, the company that published Dungeons & Dragons, Lakofka was an influential voice in the development of the game. He was one of the playtesters of the game as it was being developed, an editor of early manuscripts, wrote a widely-read monthly D&D magazine column and two official D&D adventures, and had his home campaign setting of the Lendore Isles incorporated into Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting.
Donald R. Kaye was the co-founder of Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), the game publishing company best known for their Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) role-playing game. He and TSR co-founder Gary Gygax had been friends since childhood, sharing an interest in miniature war games. In 1972, Kaye created Murlynd, one of the first D&D characters, and play-tested him in Gygax's Castle Greyhawk campaign. Kaye and Gygax were convinced that D&D and similar games were an excellent business opportunity, and together they founded Tactical Studies Rules in 1973. However, only two years later, just as sales of D&D started to rise, Kaye unexpectedly died of a heart attack at age 36.
True Adventures, Ltd., is a role-playing game company started by Jeff Martin. It operates two entertainment venues at Gen Con Indy: True Dungeon and True Dungeon Fantasy Tavern. True Adventures is notable because their signature event, True Dungeon, is "the single most popular event" at Gen Con, drawing people to the convention just for it. The event is also notable for its scale; about 3,000 players play in groups of up to eight people over four days each year. The company also hosted the event True Heroes in 2004 and 2005. True Adventures ran these events at Gen Con SoCal when the convention was still in existence. The company grew out of Martin's work in creating elaborate props and puzzles for his Dungeons & Dragons game.
Timothy James Kask is an American editor and writer in the role-playing game industry. Kask became interested in board games in his childhood, and later turned to miniatures wargames. While attending university after a stint in the US Navy, he was part of a group that playtested an early version of the new role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) for game co-designer Gary Gygax. Gygax hired him as the first employee of TSR, Inc. in 1975. After editing some of TSR's early D&D publications, Kask became editor of The Strategic Review, which later became The Dragon, and then Dragon Magazine.
Brian John Blume was an American game designer and writer, principally known as a former business partner of Gary Gygax at TSR, Inc., original publishers of the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.
Jon Pickens is an American game designer and editor who has worked on numerous products for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game from TSR and later Wizards of the Coast.
Darlene Jean Pekul, now just known as Darlene, is an American artist and calligrapher whose artwork appeared in early Dungeons & Dragons works published by TSR. Her best-known piece, the full-colour map of the Flanaess that accompanied the 1980 folio edition of the World of Greyhawk by Gary Gygax, was used as the basis of all subsequent Greyhawk publications and maps until Greyhawk publications were discontinued by Wizards of the Coast in 2008.
Gary Con is a gaming convention held in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin every year to celebrate the life and works of Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and commonly considered the father of role playing games. Gygax was raised in Lake Geneva, where the company he later founded TSR, Inc. created and produced the Dungeons & Dragons game for 25 years.
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