One other trend I noticed was that there were a lot of smaller and/or lighter weight games than I’m used to seeing, and more heavy, two-hour or more games, but I didn’t see many midweight games, the sort you might play with your whole family or with non-gamer friends and finish in 45 minutes or so. That wasn’t a deliberate choice, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence, either. You’ll notice my list of the top 10 games I saw at Gen Con doesn’t include a single title that’s a brand extension or that contains IP from another medium. I do worry about new ideas getting crowded out of the marketplace by publishers that feel, with some justification, that it’s easier to market a game with a hook than to do something entirely new.

These movies and shows aren’t all bad, and these games aren’t all bad-there were at least three games I saw at the show that are sequels to games I’ve loved and that I would thus like to purchase. It’s analogous to Hollywood’s own addiction to big IP properties, like the 87 th movie in the MCU or a 12-episode origin story for Beedo, or their own habit of bringing back or rebooting existing properties, like Top Gun: Maverick, starring Tom Cruise, or the latest Mission: Impossible movie, starring Tom Cruise.

Publishers seem to be going back to the well, whether it’s bringing over IP from movies or other media, or just publishing sequels or reboots of existing titles, more than they are bringing out completely original titles.

The biggest theme among new games at a record-breaking Gen Con this year was that everything old is new again.

Dragon city what are terra tokens