Last year I was lucky enough to do a project on the history of Gen Con. This is something I had been excited about the possibility of doing for a while, and with the 50th anniversary of Gen Con coming up in 2017 I couldn’t pass up the chance to delve into the conventions history. My staff and I at Temple University spent the year finding copies of Gen Con programs from it’s history, digitizing them, turning them into a database friendly format and building a website so others could access all of the information we had compiled. All of this came to fruition last July as best50yearsingaming.com.
This site has had a great reception from those who have visited it. We have added in a historical map and timeline tracing Gen Con’s history and some information examining the data in its new and easy to use format. We plan to continue to use the program data to conduct game history research. Gen Con’s 50 years provide a wealth of information on areas of popular culture, gaming history, and trends in gaming. If you are interested in any of these topics I hope you visit us at best50yearsingaming.com!