I just spent a few days taking in the finest of geek culture at the foremost gaming convention in the world, GenCon, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year. It was interesting to me to note some of the trends in gaming culture, some of which surprised me.

Critical Hits

• Pirates were omnipresent. I'm not sure how many piratical games I saw but I counted at least 3 different Jack Sparrows wandering the halls.
• Lasses in Corsets were a hot comodity this GenCon. But then again, when aren't they?
• Goggles seemed to be the must have accessory for the manga wannabe crowd.
• Germany still rocks the gaming world as far as the best original board games. Tribune was the best of these I demoed this year.

Success

• Firefly paraphenalia was everywhere. Clearly you can't stop the signal.
• Stormtroopers and Jedi Knights walked the corridors as well as at least one Darth Maul, an Imperial Fighter Pilot, and an Arc Trooper. Star Wars, in spite of everything, still captures people's imagination.
• Blizzard just gets more and more popular it seems. Warcraft and Starcraft games and related material were all the rage.
• Tolkien is still the one writer to rule them all.

Critical Miss

• Star Trek was conspicuous in its absence. The franchise seems to have waned in the imagination of gamers. I saw a couple people dressed up as klingons, but very little else. There were a smattering of games and nothing new. I saw no t-shirts with Trek references.