Recycling a lot of the text from last year's post:
We've had a chance to compile the wish list data for this year, and that means we can take a look at it to see what games are in the highest demand, for a number of reasons.
It also means that if you would like to get the wish list data for your own events, so you can go into more detail in your own planning, just email events@gencon.com and ask (and remember to include your group name). If you aren't the event organizer for your company or group, ask them to do it - we won't be sending data to individual GMs or anything.
First, the same caveats and instructions from last year still apply:
First, remember this list does not reflect overall demand, only high unserved demand - which is expressed here as the number of tickets folks had in their wish lists beyond the number of tickets that could actually be sold, based on submitted schedules.It's also wort noting this only measures the kinds of events folks put in their wish lists. Many TCGs and miniature games (and most board games, for that matter) don't have as strong a culture of pre-registering. Many players just show up with generics. Late events obviously won't be in this list, either, nor do games that had no submissions this year, for whatever reason (even if they were on last year's list).
This is not provided to debate the merits of different games or editions, but instead to help GMs figure out what games they might want to run in response to what players are trying to get into.
Second, don't sweat the details too much. There are lots of variables and some strange artifacts can pop up in how events are listed or attendees sign up for them. Friends might double-up and put the same tickets on both their wish lists. Many people will put every session they can find on their list, even if they really only want a single ticket. So the numbers I have aren't exact and don't read too much into these rough rankings. They're not exact, but they are a useful general gauge of what games seem to have a lot of unserved interested behind them.
I'm going to break games up by type this year. Might make it a bit easier to parse quickly. If anyone has any questions or would like other data, let me know and I'll see what I can sort out.
What is the point of looking at this list? Well...
The distribution of high unserved demand events among different event types speaks to player habits and the challenges in scaling some events to meet apparent demand.If anyone is thinking about running some events at Gen Con and not sure what to do or if you're a gaming group/company looking to expand, hopefully this can be a bit of a guide: pick something from this list and you shouldn't have much troubling finding players.
With that taken care of, here are the high-demand games for this year:
RPGs
- Dungeons & Dragons (mostly 5th edition, but a strong showing of demand for the Tal'Dorei, the Critical Role campaign setting, followed by AD&D 1st edition, too)
- Call of Cthulhu (almost entirely 7th edition, but some 6th)
- Pathfinder (divided fairly evenly between 1st & 2nd edition)
- Star Wars (mostly Edge of the Empire & Dawn of Rebellion, but also the old d6 edition, too)
- Shadowrun, 5th edition
- Savage Worlds
- Dungeon Crawl Classics
- Paranoia (spread through multiple editions)
- Delta Green
- Ubiquity
- Dread
- Starfinder
- Dresden Files
- 7th Sea
- Star Trek Adventures
- Mutants & Masterminds
- Genesys
- Kobolds Ate My Baby!
- Dungeon World
- Mouseguard
- Numenera
- Traveller
- Trail of Cthulhu
- Shadows of Esteren
- Blades in the Dark
- Mutant Crawl Classics
- Night's Black Agents
- Hero System
- Masks
- The Strange
- Kids on Bikes
- Deadlands
- Firefly
- Timewatch
- Fate
- Tales from the Loop
- Dragon Age
- Fall of Delta Green
- Bluebeard's Bride
- Outbreak: Undead
- Clockwork: Dominion
- Urban Shadows
- Fiasco
- A Song of Ice & Fire
- Conan Role-Playing Game
- Chill
- Luchador: Way of the Mask
I pulled out the RPGs that were in high demand that I don't believe will be out in time for Gen Con, so it will be hard for general attendees to run more events for them:
- Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory
- Legend of the Five Rings RPG, 5th edition
- Vampire: The Masquerade, 5th edition
- The Expanse RPG
- Invisible Sun
- Eclipse Phase, 2nd edition
- The Witcher Role-Playing Game
- Yellow King
- Cyberpunk 2020, Red edition
I find the list very interesting for the number of smaller, indie RPGs that are recent releases from the last year or two. I feel like this list is changing faster now than it has in the past.
Board & Card Games
- Arkham Horror: The Card Game
- Lord of the Rings: The Card Game
- Captain Sonar
- Terraforming Mars
- Dinosaur Island
- Scythe
- Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
- Spirit Island
- Zombicide
- Kingdom Death: Monster
- Dead of Winter
- Betrayal at Baldur's Gate
- Big Trouble in Little China: The Game
- Betrayal at House on the Hill
- Pandemic
- Rising Sun
- Star Trek: Ascendancy
- Thanos Rising: Avengers Infinity War
- Arkham Horror
- Folklore: The Affliction
- Terraforming Mars: Prelude
- Battlestar Galactica
- Mysterium
- Azul
- Dragonfire
- Birth of Europe
I removed a couple games from this list (RoboRally, King of Tokyo, Catan) because their demand was driven by very special large-scale events.
Just like RPGs, a few of these are hotly anticipated and I don't think they'll be available before the convention. Let me know if I missed any:
- Fireball Island
- Nyctophobia
- Who Goes There?
- Coma Ward
Other Event Types
For other event types, things get more chaotic and individual.
For LARPs, unserved demand was for specific custom games or for home-brew games that are driven by the gaming group's reputation and/or the IP.
Historical minis (HMN) had War of the Ring in relatively high demand, as well as Bolt Action. Non-historical minis (NMN) were mostly spread out as well, but Frostrave, Shadows of Brimstone, Star Wars Legion, Gaslands, Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures, & Star Wars Miniatures - a strong for a number of old games, as well as some new ones.