C2AGE event photos

The C2AGE event (Cosplay, Comics, Anime and Games Exhibition) was held on 7 - 8 Sep 2024 at Jaya Shopping Centre. This was an event I signed up for quite early. It was also the first time I participated as an exhibitor at a cosplay / anime type event. 

In addition to having my own booth for selling games, the organisers also gave me a free table for demoing games. I asked my long-time gaming buddy Allen to help me man the demo table. I took care of the booth and selling games, and he took care of the free play table. He asked his colleague Meng Mei to join. It was their first time being crew at a cosplay event. 

Dancing Queen and Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs being showcased.

On Saturday my friend and ex-colleague Clifford came to visit. I taught him Dancing Queen. We used to work together at a mobile game company. So you can say we met each other through games. 

This customer played Dancing Queen for the first time in July at the Asian Board Games Festival in Penang. However he actually lives in KL, not Penang. He came to support me and bought a copy of the game. Thank you! 

Participating in a cosplay / anime type event is my experiment, part of trying out what are the more effective ways of marketing my games. Cosplay and anime are not directly related to boardgames, so the audience is not the same. I have heard that boardgames and card games can do well at cosplay type events because people who go to these events have a buyer mentality. They are prepared to spend, and they are willing to buy products from creators they follow, like or want to support. That was why I wanted to try this event type, and I had high hopes. Unfortunately the event didn't go so well for me. There were not many who were interested in my games. Perhaps it was because this particular event wasn't a very big one. There wasn't enough traffic to reach a significant subset of visitors who would buy boardgames. So this didn't work so well for a small indie publisher like me. 

A number of local boardgame designers have registered for Comic Fiesta in December, the largest cosplay / anime fair in Malaysia. Perhaps only events of this scale will work for indie boardgame publishers. Two more factors to consider are the style of our games and pricing. Being boardgamers ourselves, the games we make tend to be more suited for boardgamers too. However when trying to sell to the general public, simpler games will work better. Something that can be explained and understood by the average person in 20 seconds. The price point may need to be low enough too, so that people who are not boardgamers feel comfortable spending that amount on trying something they normally don't play. I should rethink my marketing and pricing strategy.