Our November MegaCon Mini looked at some hobbies that have commonalities with megagaming to see what we can learn from them.
Chaired by MegaCon’s own BeckyBecky, we brought together experts from various hobbies:
Owen Kingston, immersive theatre Artistic Director from Parabolic Theatre
Elynor Kamil, weapons-free LARP designer
These hobbies had similar niche roots to megagames, but have managed to achieve better commercial success and cultural awareness than megagames. Our panellists discussed positioning or promotional ideas they have for how megagames can follow in their hobbies’ footsteps, and also whether there are any interesting design ideas they believe could lead to even better megagaming events in the future.
As always, #the-pub and the Designer’s Lounge in the MegaCon Discord server will be open after the event for further discussion. Please note that since Daylight Saving Time will have ended by this event, you may need to double check the event start time in your own timezone.
Conventions can be a great way to put the megagaming hobby in front of thousands more potential players. But they also come with their own challenges: the opportunity for pre-game briefing is often shorter, players may be more distracted, and then there are the logistical concerns! But conventions are already bouncing back post-Covid, with Gen Con having taken place in September, and the megagaming community can definitely benefit if we get cons right.
Our panellists have run games at various cons, including the massive Gen Con and more local and regional cons.
This MegaCon Mini looked at the essential but complicated area of player experience. It featured two 20-minute talks, each followed by 10 minutes of question time.
Our first talk was by Clare Evans, Player Experience Community Manager at Empire LARP, who discussed how this megagame-adjacent hobby ensures a top-notch experience for all players at their events, and makes some suggestions for techniques that megagame organisers could apply to their own games.
Our second talk was by Matty Robinson, who discussed her own experiences as New Player Liaison and how she believes the role is essential for developing the next waves of avid megagamers.
Our second MegaCon Mini looked at the biggest growing megagaming trend of the past year – online megagames!
Kurt LaRue of Splintered Realities speaks about his experience of running the ever popular Den of Wolves online after the pandemic struck.
Our second speaker, Joe Morris, works for the British Civil Service and takes part in their Wargaming Network. He talks about the technical implementation of Discord bots and how they’ve helped run games he’s be involved with.
Introducing MegaCon Minis! These free hour-long events are designed to tide you through the year until the next MegaCon, while providing key insights and megagaming ideas to the community as a whole.
Our first MegaCon Mini was chaired by MegaCon’s own Matt Bambridge (Mr Megagame) and featured some of the biggest names in the hot Play-by-email (PbEM) trend:
