A lot of folks have asked me if they’ll see me in Vegas this week at Games Expo. The answer is that Green Ronin is not attending. Here’s why.

Games Expo is a new show organized by Mark Matthew-Simmons. He’s spent a year going on about how he’s doing this show for the good of the industry and he only has everyone’s best interests at heart. I do not believe him for a minute. I think this is part of Mark’s lunatic vendetta against GAMA and I just don’t want to participate in that. He pretends otherwise, but why else would you announce a show in the same month and the same city as GAMA Trade Show? Just a coincidence I’m sure. Now to its credit GAMA decided to push GTS into April instead of having an outright bitch fight, but that still puts two game industry shows in Las Vegas within a month of each other. How many companies or retailers have the budget to go to both? And even if you could do both, is it really going to be worth your while?

I decided that Green Ronin would support GTS because we know what we’re getting with that show. As this is Games Expo’s first year, all we have is Mark’s promises and a location that’s way off the Strip. The danger here is that this show will split the audience down the middle and make neither show viable. If we end up with zero trade shows in two years because of this, we’ll know who to thank.