Fan Faire 09
At the end of June, right after I got done with classes for the semester, I attended Sony's Fan Faire, a convention for people who play Sony's games. It took place in Las Vegas. I play Everquest II, so I qualify. Overall, the convention was fun, though there were some hiccups.It was interesting to meet the developers and watch the process they use for collecting user feedback. This can be anything from opening an impromptu document during a panel all the way to blatantly ignoring what people have to say because of the audience's reaction and their own beliefs about the development of the game.
On to the fails. First up: the swag bag. We picked these up just inside the convention room after checking in. They were obviously packed by hand, as the one I got was missing half the stuff (or more) that the other two folks I went with got. We were able to return it for a replacement, though. The swag itself was not too impressive. They were trinkets, really.
During the convention, one of the events was a contest to design a game for women gamers. It was called G.I.R.L. - Gamers in Real Life. Three teams showed up. Our team was made up of 1 woman and 4 men. The other teams were decidedly more feminine - I think there was one other guy between the other two teams. Our team won the contest, and we each got $50 gift cards and drink tickets, which was cool. However, we were promised that they'd make mention of it at the dinner that night, and they completely forgot about it. I have to wonder if this was an intentional omission on their part since the team that won the G.I.R.L. contest was predominantly male.
As one of the attractions, there was a silent auction for mostly worthless stuff. However, there was one item that was hotly contested: the original Firiona Vie costume. The staff said that when the auction time ended, no more bids would be accepted. If someone was in the middle of writing a bid, that bid would be ignored. Well, sadly, they didn't stick to that. They allowed the person writing the last bid to finish writing after they called time. It was unfair since that was contrary to the rules they announced. Of course, the person with me who was bidding on it lost as a result.
There was a documentary that someone made about Everquest and its development. That's cool and all. In fact, it had a good sampling of Sony people and people who play the game, as you might expect. But it had a whole hell of a lot to do with the producer of the documentary. In fact, there was possibly more of him in it than there was any story about EQ. Overall, it was only so-so. The producer was on hand at least, though there was a line to talk with him and his crew, so we didn't say anything to him despite having waited around a bit at the front.
One of the vendors has a store in another casino in Vegas. They required you to leave the convention, run across the street and up the block to their store, get a ticket and bring that ticket back to their booth in the convention for a drawing. While this felt much like an Everquest quest (I need this done, and I need each of you individually to do it), it was kindof annoying since we went in the heat of the day and walked at a brisk pace outside. Yuck.
The last two failures are around the dinner at the end of the event. Before we went in, Sony folks had everyone packed in the hallway like sardines. You literally couldn't move around without squeezing past people. It was incredibly hot, with all those people breathing on each other. When the doors opened and we started moving, there was no way to stick together. You had to go with the flow of bodies. Once inside and you had a seat at a table, they announced that the food was in another room and you had to go get it. One of my companions stayed at the table while the other and I went to the buffet line. He got his food and I got mine and some for the table-holder. While we were standing in line, they ran out of meat. There were three lines, each running out of something. They took a while to replace what they ran out of, and as a result, we stood in line for a long time waiting. In the meantime, they played some stuff on the big screen in the main auditorium. They played an interview piece with me and an interview piece with one of my companions, and I missed them both while waiting for chicken.
Check-in was mostly painless, but they did have some trouble locating some of our character names. Check-in at the hotel wasn't bad, either, and the room was pretty nice, all things considered.
On the first night, we went through the bottle of rum we brought. On the second night, there was an open bar that we took advantage of. They had a "special" drink that was basically vodka, pineapple juice and some energy drink. I ordered it without the energy drink. One time, the bartender ran out of pineapple juice halfway through pouring my drink. So he went over to the other station and came back with more juice. Then he poured a shot of vodka in the glass, and topped it off with pineapple juice. He didn't notice that he already poured the vodka, and I didn't complain. It saved me a trip! On the third night, we had free drink coupons that we had won. So we were pretty well lubricated for the weekend.
And yes, I actually danced. On a dance floor. With other people around. To music. Shut up.
Food was a different story. The lines were pretty long, usually, and the food nothing to write home about. The prices were on the high side of average. And then we tried Dick's Last Resort. I know the attitude is the theme of the place, but it was just irritating. I'm not likely to go back.
Oh, yeah, one more thing. The convention ended on Saturday evening. There was nothing planned for Sunday at all! That seemed a little odd to me. As this is Las Vegas, we decided to gamble a little bit on Sunday. Bally's seemed to think that if you're gambling here, you've got to be some sort of serious gambler. Anybody who's just trying the game out for fun is wasting everyone's time. Paris is much the same way. So we left and went down the strip to the Excalibur. The atmosphere there was a lot more fun, and the dealers were a lot more friendly to us newbs. We got to play some blackjack (I lost horribly), some craps and some other stuff I don't remember now. They also had Karaoke. As you know, Karate roughly translates to "empty hand." I'm convinced that Karaoke translates to "empty voice." Some people really shouldn't sing. I'm one of them, but I don't prove it to everyone around me on a regular basis!
Finally, the drive out and back was interesting and fun, even though we learned of the death of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett on the way out. We got to see some pretty countryside and try some different restaurants than we have in Denver. The hotels were a little weird (two-story buildings don't require elevators?) but company was great, too.
Would I do it again? Sure. I might consider flying next time, though. This time we were trying to keep the trip as cheap as we could. We even packed a cooler of sandwiches!
Labels: games
posted by Brett @ 4:09 PM
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