Folks, I’ve been wanting to write about this for awhile, but it’s a heavy topic, I’ve been dealing with the Wolves Kickstarter and I just haven’t had the emotional bandwidth.
In short, since Roe v Wade was overturned, I’ve made it a company policy that Coyote & Crow Games doesn’t attend conventions in a retailer capacity in any state where abortion care is either severely restricted or banned entirely. Specifically, I don’t want my tax dollars going to states where people don’t have full access to the reproductive care that they want.
Of course, this leads to a lot of “gray area” bullshit. What’s “restricted”? What’s a “retail appearance”? I refuse to define those things here in a policy format. Instead, I’ll say that I will make personal appearances on panels, etc. at shows where I feel comfortable with the specific situation (for example, I’m planning on returning to IndigipopX in Oklahoma because I’m directly connecting with a largely Native audience and the show is on sovereign Indigenous land). And I’ll make decisions about a booth and retails sales on a case by case basis.
Which brings me around to Gen Con. Gen Con runs from August 3rd to August 6th this year. If you aren’t familiar with Gen Con, it’s the largest annual board games convention in North America. I’ve attended Gen Con every year since 2016 (except for the dark year). Last year’s convention was marred by the failures of our Outreach Coordinator, and our booth situation became a disaster. But I still attended personally, I had some great meetings, and Logan Boese ran some incredible games of Coyote & Crow the RPG.
This year however, it looks as though on August 1, the near-total abortion ban will go back into effect for the state of Indiana. Now, I already wasn’t planning on having a booth for Coyote & Crow Games at Gen Con this year. There’s a lot of reasons for that (staffing is tough for everyone, shipping is incredibly expensive), but it’s important to call out that because of this impending ban, I wouldn’t attend, even in a personal capacity, nor will I be planning on attending in the future.
If you’re not in the know, it’s incredibly expensive to attend Gen Con – even as just a gamer. It’s easy to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars just to wander those halls. And for me, spending that is already a tough sell without it being soured by being in a state where I’m surrounded by people who can’t make basic choices about their health.
I don’t blame any company or person for attending in Gen Con in the face of this ban. That’s totally okay in my book. Many companies rely on Gen Con as a part of the annual marketing push for their games. And few companies out there are getting rich off of board games. But, I’m in a position, maybe for the first time in my life, where I can make a stand with my dollars and my principles.
I’m aware that neither Gen Con nor Indiana will notice my absence. But perhaps I’ll inspire some other folks to take similar stands. Who knows. What I know is that in the world we currently live in, I often have to choose between the lesser of two evils, so it’s nice to sometimes be able to just shut the door entirely and say, “nope.”
On the brighter side, I’m really excited to be attending Big Bad Con this year as well as GameStorm next year, and more to come, hopefully! And, while Coyote & Crow Games won’t be at Gen Con, we’ve got some incredible things happening there:
- We’re nominated for the Diana Jones Award – and the winner will be announced at the show!
- We’re nominated for a CRIT Award – and the winner will be announced at the show!
- We’re partnering with [REDACTED] – and they’ll be announcing the partnership at the show!
- We’re also partnering with [REDACTED] – and they’ll be announcing the partnership at the show!
We’re also currently up to 130 donations for our new game Wolves, which will be running on Kickstarter through 8/7!
So, I’ll take what good news I can, where I can, until everyone has the health care and rights they deserve.
Coyote And Crow News ||