24 Hour gaming room?

[DancingTofu]

Ideally, a 24-hour game room would be awesome.  Ideally, we'd also have 10-20 gaming staff there full-time.  There will be PLENTY to do AROUND THE CLOCK if we can find HARDWORKING, SERIOUS gaming staff.  So if you want something RIDICULOUSLY COOL to do at THREE IN THE MORNING, encourage your gamer friends to become gaming staff.  Seriously.  We really do want to work with them.

[gemineye42]

Ideally, a 24-hour game room would be awesome.  Ideally, we'd also have 10-20 gaming staff there full-time.  There will be PLENTY to do AROUND THE CLOCK if we can find HARDWORKING, SERIOUS gaming staff.  So if you want something RIDICULOUSLY COOL to do at THREE IN THE MORNING, encourage your gamer friends to become gaming staff.  Seriously.  We really do want to work with them.

^ Tried this for years, people no want to stay up at 3AM working in gaming for some reason, and I must sleep sometime! Good luck with it Tofu XD

[dshwshr55]

Count me in! I'll be in the game room whenever I'm not somewhere else ^^  I'm always hoping for a 24 hour gaming room. How else are you supposed to stay at a con if the only hotels open are $400/night 6 miles away? Don't bother with the sleep!

[Rathany]

(Not to be a giant party pooper, but)  We will also need Yojis to make this work and more budget.  If even a single room goes 24 hours it triples our event insurance cost. 

Working towards this is awesome, but I just want to make sure that people know all the things involved. 

[gemineye42]

Let me shed some light on what happened in 07 -

We couldn't talk people into being gaming staff. We begged. We pleaded. We coerced with punch and pie. By con weekend, we had almost 13 people signed up as staff, about 8 or 9 of which actually showed up and did their jobs. Even with THAT many staff members, many of us still worked 12 hour shifts for the con and got very little sleep, and NO time to enjoy the con for ourselves. In 07 the room was only open 10-midnight.

Gaming staff requires a minimum of 2 people for bag check, 2-3 people for game check, 2 roamers and several tournament organizers at any given time to keep the room operational. Alternatively, Gaming also requires 2-4 Yojimbo at ALL times to prevent issue.

So that's a minimum of 8+ people staffed at all times in the gaming room. If you can sign up enough staff members who want to volunteer for that kind of a weekend commitment, more power to you!

I support the idea, but like Rathany I don't want people to get overly excited for something that is unlikely to be workable at this time.

[superjaz]

(Not to be a giant party pooper, but)  We will also need Yojis 

yeah when i read this i thought, "oh no our yojimbo's need sleep!"

[RemSaverem]

Ironically, I just today posted in our yahoo group in reply to folks who were saying that they'd like the Creation Station to stay open later hours, that I could imagine some future day in which KC kept parts of itself open 24-7. The CS would be a pretty easy one to keep open; we would just close one room and manage the other with just one or two staff, and no supervision, and our first year at Sakuracon, we ran Fanfiction Bedtime Stories for TEN hours (complete with spontaneous fanfic drabble contests, spontaneous fan art contests, and a sponatneous improv radio play!). Sure by the last hour there were only about 4 people, but they were very happy people

The reason I can imagine KC going 24-7 is that at some point, we are likely to run out of space into which to expand, so the only direction to expand our programming would be in number of hours. Or, we could always open on Friday *ducks to avoid pelted tomatos*.....

[dshwshr55]

If gaming isn't a possibility, I'd be staff for CS in the forbidden hours ^^

[RemSaverem]

If gaming isn't a possibility, I'd be staff for CS in the forbidden hours ^^

And we'd love to have you

Do you think there's enough interest in Art Show that if we really went that route, it would also be open?

[DancingTofu]

open on Friday *ducks to avoid pelted tomatos*.....

This is another thing I'd love to move towards one day, but I don't think it will be soon.  Here are my numbers:

Current game room operation time (full operation): 51 hours
3-day, 8am day one to 5pm day 3 (ideal):  67 hours
4-day, 8am day one to 5pm day 4 (idealler!): 81 hours

So, what can we do in 51, 67, or 81 hours?

With 51 hours, we can run. . .
17 tournaments with an average running length of 3 hours
but we only ran 8. :[
36 tournaments running 2 parallel tournaments averaging 3 hours with no tournaments during low times (10pm to 10am) (run parallel with little to no crossover; Rock Band during DDR, SSB during GG, etc) O_O

With a 67-hour schedule. . .
22 tournaments, 3 hours each.  We can easily change that to be running 16 hours at 4 hours each and still be running more than twice as many tournaments as we do now.
Running parallel tournaments, we can comfortably run 30 tournaments, where length won't be a concern except with a handful of REALLY long tournaments.

With 81 hours. . .
We could run 20 tournaments smoothly without a care in the world
Running parallel, we could make that 30 with no tournaments running between midnight and 8am on any day.


So, the less convenient numbers. . .
In order to run our current game room, with 12-hour shifts once daily, we need 10-15 game room staff plus a bunch of Yojis
We ran it with 5 this year and the occasional sixth.

In order to run a 24-hour game room, with 12-hour shifts and 8-hour breaks, we would need 12-18 game room staff plus an even larger bunch of Yojis

Adding a 4th day wouldn't be a problem if no portion of the convention was understaffed.  I think it's a reasonable goal.  But it's a goal, and it's not a goal for 2009, or 2010; at best it's a goal for 2011.



Wade, we love you and gaming and you know it. ;P

[melchizedek]

I think this mean Tofu is going to own recruiting the extra staff for the increased uptime

Thanks Tofu

[dshwshr55]

Tofu, it's more likely to happen if YOU can come up with the money to financially support a 4th day. Conventions consume more money than they receive. If conventions were profitable, their staff would be getting paid, right?! XD

And the problem is actually coming up with that many tournaments that people will be interested in! Take the tournament in the game room this year that got the least amount of participants, and you're going to have less people than that in any other ad-libbed tournament. I say this assuming that the tournaments that were run this year were picked because they were popular and most likely to bring in the most people. I can name at least a dozen games I'd participate in, but it's not going to happen because there simply won't be enough people interested.

Other than that, I'm all for it! ^^

[Hawkeye]

Another thing to consider is the Yojimbo.  I don't think you'd get very many who would willingly do 24-hour staffing (although I could be wrong).

[DancingTofu]

I think this mean Tofu is going to own recruiting the extra staff for the increased uptime

Thanks Tofu

HECK YES!  I RECRUIT LIKE A CANDY BAR!


A lot of Yoji's I've talked to would be down for night shifts; it's a matter of getting another 50 Yojimbo so that they aren't working night shifts and day shifts.  Otakus are naturally nocturnal so it's more a matter of recruiting lots more Yojimbo than finding Yojimbo willing to work.


It's all just a discussion for now.  We'll see how recruiting goes and hopefully start looking at what's realistic in the Spring.  I think a 24-hour game room is realistic for 2009, but it's something we'd (we = gaming staff + yojimbo) really have to rise up to and make happen; it's not about to happen by itself.

[dshwshr55]

I'm not sure how many people became staff that AREN'T on the forums or went to any of the meetings, but you might consider them, too.
Also, in the very later/earlier hours, you won't need as many staff. Like the Creation Station said about their room, at 3 am you might have only 4 people there, but they'll be happy people! ^^

[DancingTofu]

Yeah.  Bag check could easily have only one person, as with game check.  No tournaments would be run by staff on shift late at night, so really we could operate between 2am and 6am with just two staff if needed.

[melchizedek]

I'd be careful though, Mini-con last year if I recall didn't have game room fully staffed and ended up losing some gear.

In my opinion a good thing to extend the hours would be the viewing rooms.  I'd be more happy to sit in a dark room and enjoy an anime than to ddr until 6am

[DancingTofu]

Perhaps it's more logical, but I work gaming and will never work anywhere else, so extending the viewing room hours is not something I'm going to work towards.  I don't even read manga or watch anime; I just post in the spam forum and play video games. 


Again, we're not going anywhere without at least twice as many staff as what we had this year.  Doesn't stop us from figuring out logistics though.

[SpearXXI]

I'd be careful though, Mini-con last year if I recall didn't have game room fully staffed and ended up losing some gear.

In my opinion a good thing to extend the hours would be the viewing rooms.  I'd be more happy to sit in a dark room and enjoy an anime than to ddr until 6am

Well, an easy fix to the theft is to require people to give the crew their ID in order for them to play video games. Obviously, if they are playing that late, they would be over 18, and by law people are *supposed* to have ID on them. When the person is done playing, they bring the stuff back, or the staff does a quick inventory of what they played, and they get their ID back. *shrug*

[dshwshr55]

That's brilliant!  I'm glad we thought of it ^^

[SpearXXI]

Oh, and if you make the night time in the wee hours 18+ cause of curfew, you could get away with letting people play mature games. But that is totally up to the con.

[dshwshr55]

Oh, and if you make the night time in the wee hours 18+ cause of curfew, you could get away with letting people play mature games. But that is totally up to the con.

Um, did you go to the game room at Kcon? Because all of those issues were resolved, even playing MA game during the day.

[SpearXXI]

Oh, and if you make the night time in the wee hours 18+ cause of curfew, you could get away with letting people play mature games. But that is totally up to the con.

Um, did you go to the game room at Kcon? Because all of those issues were resolved, even playing MA game during the day.

Um, I stopped into the game room a couple of times, but I play enough games at home, I was more interested in other things, so sorry if I mentioned something already resolved. lol It did look like a nice set up though, but none of my friends wanted to stick around there.

[dshwshr55]

One thing a lot of people prefer are LAN and online games, rather than playing a bunch of other people on one screen. As far as I know, this year didn't have any sort of LAN. There's a reason they have a term called MMO. If you want more customers, advertise a variety of gaming (if you can get it).

[melchizedek]

I'm trying to find the right person at work to get some kind of sponsorship for K-con.  What I'd like to see happen is get my work to donate a dozen or so computers in exchange for posting a bunch of big signs.

I deff prefer the lan shooters / RTS over consoles. 

[DancingTofu]

Owning some computers would be amazing, even if it's a matter of getting some slightly outdated computers.  Most games aren't ready for competitive use until 8-10 months after release anyway.  Besides that, if we own some good computers, we can retire those to data input computers once they stop supporting popular games, and we have a set of computers for reg, game check, lost and found, etc.

Definitely keep working at it, and talk to our relations director after elections and they might be able to help you figure out who to talk to and how to talk to them.

[allstarsniper32]

I definitely want the game room to be 24/7. It really annoys me when people go to the con and steal the stuff from there. You should be required to turn your pockets out when you leave the room or something. Hopefully you can get enough people to run the game room 24/7 though. I really like being able to go to a gaming room at 4 am because I can't sleep for whatever reason. Good luck with this though.

[DancingTofu]

Yeah.  We've been brainstorming a better security system for years.  I think I might take a break from planning this fall and work on a disc changer system for some 6th gen systems.  Basically, have key-locked disc trays (4-6 per system) and a switch that controls which one is running.  To switch games, just switch to the corresponding disc tray and reset.  I know this can be done with the PS2, but it would require me to get some custom-made ribbon wiring and switches.

The idea is to reduce the amount attendees handle games without limiting their ability to change games.

[allstarsniper32]

oh nice I like that! One thing I think gaming room should have is stations setup for a specific game. I think there were too many people play Brawl and SC4 this year and they were using up all the TVs and Systems. I don't know how many systems you had this year but I bet you could put 3 wiis on some side playing only Brawl and that's the only place you can play it, same with SC4 but who knows what will be the popular games next year. I do want to see more of the game Battle stadium? D.O.N. the one game that was like Brawl but with DBZ/One Piece/Naruto characters.

[DancingTofu]

Kind of like the Rock Band and DDR?  I think that's a reasonable thing to start moving towards, but that's a matter of inventory and space.  Gaming was running short on a bit of everything this year, except demand and fun.  Hopefully we'll be able to get more staff, systems, and space next year and put a lot of good ideas into action.

[allstarsniper32]

Yeah that's what I was thinking, Rock Band only needs one setup and so would Guitar Hero, especially when RB2 and GH World Tour come out. Although I must say, the DDR station was awesome, even though I don't play it.

I'm hoping that the gaming area will be bigger next year!

[DancingTofu]

We're looking at two possible areas for gaming in 2009 and 2010.  They're both bigger than what we've had an any year prior, but one of them is HUGE and the other's just big.  If we wind up in the HUGE room, space would allow for pretty much any setup we can get the equipment for.  Otherwise, I think we'll probably want to just have one Rock Band setup by default (we can have things set up so we can pull out the other set if there's a lot of demand, but we did fine this year when there was only one and the fact that we only have RB for the PS3 means we're really tight on PS3's) and two GH:WT setups, plus the two DDR setups again for music games.

Bigger and better!  It's a bit of a waiting game at this point; but it's never too early to start recruiting fresh new gaming staff; that's going to play a big role in keeping our game room growing.

[allstarsniper32]

I hope you're able to get more staff! And also hope you get the huge room!

[dshwshr55]

If we do get a LAN up, it would make sense to make another gaming room for it (not as big, of course), adding a couple more staff. Or are the rooms big enough to hold a network in a separate corner from the music games?
I like hearing people talk trash during a good game of Unreal Tournament ^^

[DancingTofu]

Wade, check out the Hotel Thread in the Staff Forums; there's been a lot of discussion in there about it which answers your question.  Nothing's definite until after elections though so I don't want to say anything public.

[Bob]

I'd help you staff this. I'd work 12 hours, sleep 8 (which is the more then most sleep all together I'll have ever gotten at con all together), use the other 4 to shower, eat, change, stuff like that.

[DancingTofu]

Sleep 8 hours?  CRAZY TALK! ;P

I think I got a total of 5 hours of sleep, including when I was sleeping under the table in bag check on-call for an hour on Monday.

[dshwshr55]

Sleep 8 hours?  CRAZY TALK! ;P

I think I got a total of 5 hours of sleep, including when I was sleeping under the table in bag check on-call for an hour on Monday.

I should've crawled under there with you. Then we wouldn't have been disturbed.

[Bob]

when people try to wake me bad things happen. I kicked my little brother in the forehead head just a couple days ago. so I mean I doubt someones gonna try to make me get up if I was sleeping underneath a table with tofu anyways.

[dshwshr55]

It might not be the wisest decision to kick the hotel authorities in the head anyways.

[DancingTofu]

Yeah; perhaps we should avoid striking hotel staff with our feet. :[

[Bob]

the only safe way to wake me seems to be tugging on my beard. not too terribly hard, I have no feeling in my chin, but I'd like to keep the amount of hair I have. but yeah, I only kicked him because I was sleeping and he was jumping on me. and because I don't like waking up. but yes I would totally do this, how many people is that tofu?

[Mister_manji]

Before we try 24hrs, we need staff show up on time for the regular hours. That didn't happen this year, so we should work on that first.

[DancingTofu]

I'm gonna just kind of threadjack this into general game room improvement discussion.


I'm hoping that, without the schedule conflict with PAX, we'll be able to bring in new staff with enthusiasm and dedication.  People like myself and Sean, who were both first-timers this year who had a BLAST and will definitely buy again.  Bob will be one more, and Wyatt's pretty hard-set on gaming, so he's probably ours when he's 16.   I'm going to talk to a few of my friends who helped me this year, like Pandy, who did most of the videos for the DDR, and Wang, who helped judge the Rock Band tournament, supplied two of the DDR pads, and helped a lot with the DDR.  We're going to want to grow systematically.  Work with the definite.

We're going to want to look at where we are in January.  I'm guessing gaming will have 10 to 12 reliable staff by then, which won't be enough (in my opinion) to start expanding gaming during the con, although at that point, we should definitely be looking into a mini-event. 

All of us need to be recruiting, but we need to make sure we're communicating with new staff lots.  We need people to want to work with us.


Also, I've been talking to Patrick, and we may be looking into setting up some of our systems by network so that PS3 and/or 360 games don't leave the check-out area.  I need to look into some details and figure out exactly how to do that, but I'm pretty sure we could run the games off a remote source.  I'm working with other ideas for other systems, and I'll hopefully be able to implement a few of them at MEW Con.


Another way I think we can make gaming more efficient is a more streamlined bag and prop check.  Prop check can be changed so that we use a numbered tag, with the attendee's badge number.  Each attendee could get one with their badge, and if they don't have it, we won't check their bag.  For props, we can ask people to check in their actual badge, mostly to discourage people from just using bag check as storage for their huge props just because they don't want to carry them to their car or to their room.  Along with this, we need to inform attendees of the limitations we have in place.  For instance, I'd personally want to implement a system of 8"x12"x24" cubbies, each with a notch in the shelf where the bag tag goes.  This would draw a clear line of "we're full" or "there's number 2563", which would make bag check go much faster.  If we had 120 cubbies, it would be 85" (7'1") high, and 150" (12'6") wide, and it could be made (I'd make it if the gaming budget would pay for it) using just 16 ct. 48"x96"x1/2" fir plywood boards, which are about $25 each at Lowe's.  It would be an investment, but it would also save a ton of stress for both attendees and staff.  We'd want to use fir plywood, because particleboard is crap for construction and weighs too much and chip board makes crap shelving

[superjaz]

i really feel if you want this to happen you will need to find your own staff/yojimbo for it for the time of the con, before con

[MizzArianna]

Meh, games make you fat and lazy.

[allstarsniper32]

not if playing a game makes you neglect a certain need like um eating. That's not very healthy though.

[Mister_manji]

Meh, games make you fat and lazy.

Do you have nothing better to do than insult strangers on the net?

[DancingTofu]

Meh, games make you fat and lazy.

I'm 5'10", 140lbs, I bike 20-80 miles a day, I have a 4000 calorie diet, and I play video games 1-10 hours a day.  Your claim is null.

[dshwshr55]

Meh, games make you fat and lazy.

I'm 5'10", 140lbs, I bike 20-80 miles a day, I have a 4000 calorie diet, and I play video games 1-10 hours a day.  Your claim is null.

Pretty much my stats, too, except I bike only 7 miles a day. But I also have a job! ^^