Its bad form that now we find out, after the time frame to roll our badges over, that we find out that several companies will not have a physical presence this year, but will be supporting the online convention.

If all the focus will be on the online convention what is the point of actually attending this year?  It seems to me that this should have been announced before the last day to roll our badges over.

I am really wondering what is the point of going.  No Paizo, no auction, no dance, or any other large gathering.  

Is there going to be enough events to keep those of us attending occupied or will we all just wandering the meager offerings of the dealer hall until it closes and then try to figure out what to do in the evenings?

Surely you aren't really expecting someone to explain to you "the point of actually attending this year"?

And some things will be different this year.  That shouldn't be news to anyone.

If you don't want to go, don't go.  Refund your badge for system credit and buy a new badge next year.  What's the difference?  And with limited badges, someone else will be wanting your spot, I expect. 

I think the blame has to fall on the individual companies for this one.

Paizo ducking out after the rollover deadline must suck for those who banked on them attending, but I've also seen companies that said "We'll be there" before the deadline (True Dungeon, Baldman Games, Catalyst Game Labs). In fact, CGL's announcement on their forums specifically mentioned that they wanted to give a firm answer before the rollover deadline. So I think it was on Paizo, etc. to make a public decision before the deadline, not Gen Con.

The point of going is because Gen-Con is happening in person again; I do not know what anyone needs beyond that.

I will grant that I am someone who gets absolutely nothing out of virtual gaming and for whom Gen-Con was literally exactly as you derisively describe--"just wandering the ... dealer hall until it closes and then ... figure out what to do in the evenings"--for the first three years I attended, and I had the time of my life each time.  I would be shocked if there were not roughly as many dealers in the Exhibit Hall for 2021 as there were when I first attended in the 1990s, and it would have been positively hilarious back then to suggest those were "meager" offerings.

By the way, lest this sound too relentlessly negative in response to your post, I do understand--the Auction is like 50% of my joy at Gen-Con every year, and for people looking forward to specific things it is rough when they get cancelled.  But the thing is, Gen-Con is also objectively 5,000% more entertaining than any other annual event in my opinion, so I would attend as long as it bore any resemblance to itself.

The point of going is because the ratio of people who need their fun spoon fed to them to the people who have enough imagination to make their own fun will be much lower.

That said, there are individual groups of GM's working to pick up the slack on events.  I think there will be enough to do, but it may very well be stuff you wouldn't normally do.  I'm pretty sure that will be where I end up, outside of my comfort zone.  Who knows...maybe I'll find I enjoy that more.  

But yeah...I think companies should have worked hard to make announcements before the roll-over deadline.  

I get that part of Gen Con is simply attending. I had my consecutive years
stretch of attending Gen Con snapped at 19 years last year as I didn’t attend the virtual convention. 

My concern is that there will be more of a focus on the virtual convention to the detriment of the physical convention. 

Paizo, one of the major sponsors, was able to not attend the physical convention. What does that mean for the exhibitors hall?  Will there be enough vendors to make it worth going through the exhibitors hall?

Now that we know there will be no Pathfinder Society events will there be enough event offerings to people entertained?

I go to Gen Con for large scale events and to try new games. It doesn’t look like I will be able to demo much this year as that has already been stated. 

There are just too many unanswered questions for my liking. 

Paizo's events accounted for 2% of the events in 2019. If 49 more organizations the size of Paizo did not run events there would still be around 10k events happening. I think it will be fine.

Dungeons & Dragons will have it's normal massive presence at the show (well scaled a little since the show itself is scaled and table spacing). Hundreds of events with thousands of tickets. Including learn to plays, special events, some cool unannounced things, and more then enough content to take up a day, two days, or the whole show if you want.

For me, the primary vendor I go to every year announced that they will not be attending before the deadline.  I still plan on going.  It will suck to not walk out of there with their new hotness, but c'est la vie.  I'll still be able to order it online and get it shipped to me.

I'm still planning on going.  Hopefully some vendors will be doing demos.  I'm not expecting True Dungeon slots to sell out within seconds, so I might give that a go this year.  I'll try to play a couple of events and maybe even run some.  I'll most certainly pick up a couple of new games and spend every evening playing them with my friends.

Cosplay Deviants will be there, and they may not be the source of the most controversy this year.  ;)

People only sign up for events that they want to play in. If someone isn’t interested in say Battletech they aren’t going to sign up to play in any Battletech events. 

However I apply the to each their own motto here. If you enjoy it then do what you enjoy. 

While im
not going to take time to see if your numbers are correct it doesn’t really matter what the percentage is if those are the events that people want to participate in. 

412 (events run by Paizo Inc.) / 19630 (total events) = 0.0209882832399389 or 2%

Are you implying that the other 19218 were largely not events people want to participate in? 

Not at all. Your earlier comment just doesn’t hold much merit to be honest. 

Yes Gen Con does have a lot of various events, but people will only participate in events that interest them. 

So there were 19,000 other events other than events by Paizo. If those events hold no interest to someone or really doesn’t matter how many other events there are. 

I think it's safe to say that if your enjoyment of the con is dependent one single event or even a narrow range of events this will not be the year for you. 

Hey if Paizo isn't there that huge ball room could be used for some spaced out open gaming! Or something else. Who knows.

I'm sure if Paizo is the only thing you do, them ducking out after the fact stings a bit. But look at it this way. It will give you an opportunity to try new things at Gen Con that maybe you wouldn't have done before.

We can't compare the number of events in 2019 to this year as 2019 had full attendance from the usual companies.

As of now there is no guarantee that there will be any CCG events.  We don't know if there will be any miniatures events and we know for sure that there will be no Pathfinder events.  That is a ton of events that run round the clock all four days of Gen Con.

So with all of that being said it is a legitimate concern about what will actually be offered this year between the exhibitor hall and events.