RogerBW's Blog

UK Games Expo 2019: Sunday 11 June 2019

Things were a lot quieter today… to the point that some demo people were leaping out at passers-by to try to get in one more game and potential sale.

The first one I looked at was Paco Ŝako ("Peace Chess" in Esperanto), a chess variant being sold with custom pieces, though you can play it with a standard set. You don't capture an enemy piece, you dance with them; once you've moved onto their square, you make a composite piece which can be moved by either player with the movement of the piece of theirs that's in the composite. If you move one of your pieces onto an existing composite, that frees up your piece that was already in it, which can immediately take a normal move. The objective is for a piece of yours to dance with the enemy's king.

I rather liked the look of it, though I didn't have time for a game; I may well try it some time.

I spent a bit of time outside again; this really isn't the sort of thing I expect from the NEC, a small enclosed space open to the sky with only one way to spend money. This is where I tend to take my breaks, if it's not raining. Or if it is.

Back to the demo table, and more Terraforming Mars. We set it up so that people would play the setup and then three full turns.

This t-shirt shop was just across the aisle from us. (Oddly, I saw no boardgaming shirts for sale, though plenty of general fantasy, SF and geekiness.)

The Bring and Buy pickup was its usual chaotic self. I think it's too big, and they need to split it into multiple smaller sales, so that a particular set of games can be found on table A, or in bin 17, or whatever. Even better, though more demanding of people, if they made it warehouse-style service: you check the listing of what's available, ask to take a look, they get it for you to inspect, and either you buy it or you give it back and they re-shelve it.

Finally got away from the show an hour and a half after closing time (after striking the booth and general fiddliness), by which time the car park was a bit less full than it had been.

[Buy Paco Ŝako at Amazon] [Buy Terraforming Mars at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

See also:
UK Games Expo 2019: Thursday
UK Games Expo 2019: Friday
UK Games Expo 2019: Saturday


  1. Posted by dlpulver at 11:49pm on 11 June 2019

    I enjoyed reading your reports. Hadn't heard of Paco Sako, but a neat concept. My dad would have liked it.

  2. Posted by Tim Ellis at 01:03pm on 24 June 2019

    I don't think the "Argos" model would work for the Bring & Buy - there are too many potential customers, and after a certain point, adding more sales/warehouse staff is counter-productive - if several people are trying to look at the same games at the same time you end up holding everyone else up. A more ordered arrangement of games would help those people looking for a specific game, but whatever system you used would not suit everyone, and given the unpredictable arrivals (I know games have to be pre-registered for the Bring & Buy, but I'm not sure there is a cutoff, and even if you know what to expect, you don't know when it will be dropped off) it seems a lot of extra work that will end up not greatly improving things for most people. Entirely separate sections greatly increase your staffing demands, and if you wanted to visit more than one section may end up making the experience worse rather than better (You can't take bags with games in them into the B&B, so if you bought games in section 1, you need to deposit them somewhere before going to section 2).

    In other words - Yes, it's chaotic and very busy, but that is the nature of the beast! - The fact that it remains very busy suggests that it works (I've not sold stuff there, and I don't know what %age of goods offered remain unsold, and of those unsold goods, how many are due to unrealistic pricing (so they wouldn't have sold under any system) rather than people who wanted to buy them being unable to find them...

  3. Posted by RogerBW at 01:11pm on 24 June 2019

    You make good points. Thank you.

    For sections, I wasn't thinking of separated rooms as much as distinct tables: they already separate out miniatures packs, and small games from large games, so my "light" change recommendation would be more along the lines of "table 1 is for games with titles starting A-D, table 2 E-K" etc.

    The fact that it's very busy suggests to me that people are spending far longer than they need to in order to drop off, buy, or pick up their games. Someone spending half an hour searching for the particular game that interests them is a body that hits the occupancy limit, so someone else has to queue outside until they've finished.

    What I don't know, because I didn't care to queue for an hour to get in during selling hours and take a look, is what proportion of people are looking for a specific item versus people who just want to browse. Everyone I spoke with was looking up the undocumented URL on the Expo web site which lists everything that's still for sale, and then trying to find the specific items that were on their lists; but it's entirely possible that the people I know at Expo are not a representative sample.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 essen 2024 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1