New Pathfinder Scenerios at GEN CON?

[brent norton]

Ok, This may be weird but why are the players at Gen Con rewarded with the grand opening for the new season for PFS. I would think that the season would start at PaizoCon. Just a thought.

[Dragnmoon]

brent norton wrote:

Ok, This may be weird but why are the players at Gen Con rewarded with the grand opening for the new season for PFS. I would think that the season would start at PaizoCon. Just a thought.

A few reasons

Tradition...
Larger Player Base...
Release schedule that has been in effect for 4 years...

[JohnF]

Because the folks who attend PaizoCon already know about Pathfinder?

Making a big deal about GenCon, and ramping up the excitement, is a good way to try and attract new players into the fold.

[Vic Wertz]

PaizoCon gets the benefit of being the event that *ends* the season.

[Thorkull]

And, as much fun as Paizocon undoubtedly is (I fully intend to attend next year), GenCon has always been the big release con for every RPG manufacturer since TSR invented the hobby. That's probably why PFS got launched at GenCon in the first place, and why the year-long cycle will continue to start at GenCon.

[Mark Moreland]

As Vic says, if we did it the other way, we'd be starting the season at PaizoCon in the early summer and then just doing business as normal at Gen Con. There's nothing wrong with business as normal, mind you, but it means we're not taking advantage of the huge opportunity Gen Con provides for running large events and showing off our annual "new shiny" to as many gamers as possible. It would also mean that a season's conclusion would happen in May or June (depending when PaizoCon fell that year) and wouldn't align with any conventions at which Paizo has a presence, precluding a major event for the season's climax.

[Matthew Pemrich]

brent norton wrote:

Ok, This may be weird but why are the players at Gen Con rewarded with the grand opening for the new season for PFS. I would think that the season would start at PaizoCon. Just a thought.

There are some practical reasons why this does not change.

1. It's difficult to convince a major convention that you have absolutely no hand in running to reschedule to fit your release cycle.
2. It would be suicide to try to rush the release cycle to shift it even a month. There are four scenarios at the end of every season, and trying to rush them and all the ones following them and this will cut the available time-to-release for every scenario in development. From what I've heard, scenarios are already in development right up to their release dates. It would be insane to try to push them out faster than that.
3. Likewise, putting PFS on hiatus for eleven months would be suicide for PFS.
4. GenCon, quite frankly, is bigger than PaizoCon by a couple orders of magnitude. Compare GenCon's ≈30,000 attendees in 2010 to PaizoCon's ≈500 (according to my minimal research) the same year. Advertising at the start of each season at one of the biggest venues in the US is more appropriate, and likely hugely beneficial to the uptake of PFS by players.