Interview: Peter D Adkison Date: March 24th 2002 by: Damon White

On the news that Peter Adkison (former President and founder of Wizards of the Coast) is the soon to be owner of GenCon we tracked him down to get some questions answered. Luckily for us he stopped by site which made it easier to ask him.


GamingReport: First and foremost I believe there are a lot of people that have questions regarding GenCon. Can you give us some insight regarding the following questions.

GamingReport: Why did you purchase GenCon from Wizards of the Coast?
Peter Adkison: "This is a chance to get back to work in the industry I love, doing something that’s a lot of fun, in a small company environment, yet profitable enough to feel I’m not wasting my time. I’ve always loved GenCon and this is a chance to focus my creative energies on it to make it even bigger and better than before."


GamingReport: Are there plans to try to keep it in Milwaukee? If not is it to stay on schedule and move to Indianapolis?
Peter Adkison: "No, I made the decision to move it to Indianapolis the last time I owned it. :-) If you’ve been to GenCon in the last few years you know what a disaster that has become for us. The convention center is spread out all over, getting hotel space near the con is a major hassle, and there is more deconstruction ahead. We outgrew this city and as painful as it is to change cities, there’s really no choice."


GamingReport: Do you have any plans on changing the calendar dates of the convention?
Peter Adkison: "Nope, we’re going to keep it in the July-August time frame, while kids are out of school. I think this is best for supporting families who like to go there during summer break."


GamingReport: Do you plan on trying to hire back former WotC staff to run the show?
Peter Adkison: "I am inheriting Dave Wilson and his crew as part of the deal."


GamingReport: Did you contact Wizards of the Coast to buy it or did they contact you?
Peter Adkison: "They contacted me. The current CEO of Wizards of the Coast is Vince Caluori, who was my number 2 man for years and is a close personal friend. I asked him to let me know first anytime something at WotC was for sale, and that’s what he did. It’s good to have low friends in high places!"


GamingReport: Question on Topics other than GenCon.

GamingReport: What are your thoughts on what has come to pass at Wizards of the Coast since your departure? Staffing Changes, License deals, Business changes.
Peter Adkison: "Wizards of the Coast has had a difficult time in the post-Pokemon era. While we tried very hard not to let our base of operations get too big during the Pokemon period, frankly, we failed, and the layoffs are the result. However WotC does seem to be putting out some quality products still, which is the most important thing. There are some fine D&D; books coming out, and I spent a lot of last week playing around with the new Torment cards for Magic and was suitably impressed. I also think Chainmail is an excellent product, although it’s getting overshadowed by the runaway success of WizKids."


GamingReport: Looking back, would you of done something different when it came to selling Wizards to Hasbro and leaving your position there?
Peter Adkison: "Nope. While it was difficult to sell Wizards of the Coast, it was clearly the right business decision. Pokemon was so hot and our revenues were so high that I knew I’d never get that sort of opportunity again. If it would have been entirely my own company and I wouldn’t have had investors and option holders to answer too, then I could have sat on it and weathered the post-pokemon storm without a problem. But when you have investors your first responsibility is to them and you have to put personal preferences aside."


GamingReport: Are you planning on getting back into Game development under an existing company or are you going to develop a new one? What types of games and/or services will it offer?
Peter Adkison: "Nope, at least not anytime soon. The only thing that would tempt me out of that would be if the next Richard Garfield came to me with an opportunity to be involved in the next groundbreaking product. Even though that’s possible, I’m making my plans as if that’s not going to happen. Also, I think it’s best if GenCon is owned and operated by an independent faction, that way all the manufacturers feel that they have an even playing field at the show. (For years many manufacturers felt torn on whether or not to support GenCon, given that it was owned by one of their largest competitors.)

The idea of "only" doing GenCon for awhile may sound like small potatoes compared to WotC, but that doesn’t matter to me. I’m very excited about it and I’m looking forward to throwing all my creative energy into making it the best show I can. And I own 100% of GenCon, whereas I only owned 4% of WotC, so the financial difference isn’t as big as you’d think."


GamingReport: What are your thoughts on where the D20 license is headed and the issues around an OGL of its size?
Peter Adkison: "I love d20. As a gamer I’ve been buying (or scamming!) as much d20 stuff as I can get my hands on. I think the d20 OGL will give consumers much more variety to choose from, for years to come, especially in areas like dark fantasy or weird genres that WotC would never get around to. The "issues" will all get worked out over time."


GamingReport: What are your thoughts on the future of the industry (both short term and long term)?
Peter Adkison: "I’ve always been optimistic and still am. Hobby games are a ton of fun and are holding up well even though there’s been huge growth in electronic games and other forms of entertainment. People will always want to get around a table and hang out with friends. And there will always be creative game designers out there coming up with something new. Of course there will be change. Various categories will wax and wane, but the overall industry will do just fine."


GamingReport: Do you still game? If so, what games do you regularly play?
Peter Adkison: "Absolutely. I play Magic: The Gathering occasionally. Not enough to be good at building decks, but I make it a point to get the PCDs for each new release and play a few games, especially with my dad who’s a Magic fanatic. But my first and last love is D&D;, which is why I bought it back in ’97 and personally led the 3rd Edition design team for 6 months until I felt it was on the right track with Jonathan Tweet at the helm. Currently I’m running two regular games and playing in three. The games I’m running are on a plane that’s quite barbaric but with powerful magic. The "fair races" (humans, dwarves, elves, etc) occupy only about 10-20% of the land, the rest is ruled by equally advanced cultures of other races, like ogres, giants, drow, etc. One of the two groups I’m running is a group of fair race adventures that are so far from civilization that not only have none of them ever been to even a village (much less a city) of their own race, they haven’t even heard of one! The only city they know of is ruled by ogre slavers.

Of the games I’m playing, in one I’m a female human cleric at about 9th level, in another I’m a 3rd level half-orc barbarian sorcerer (he has just one level of sorc so he can use all arcane wands, shield, and expeditious retreat). In the other I’m playing a dwarven rogue-druid; the first command he teaches his animal companions is "flank!" hee hee."


GamingReport: What should we expect in the next few months?
Peter Adkison: "Hopefully by May the acquisition will be complete. The focus for the first few months will be very operational in nature, the nuts and bolts. We’re going to have to get our own office, and we’ll have to bring a lot of logistical and administrative support into the new company, stuff that was done by other departments within WotC that we won’t have access to anymore. It’ll be some hard work, but I’m confident we’ll get it down. After all, the first time I bought GenCon things were in much worse shape, and it was much closer to the con, but we pulled it off."


GamingReport: We want to thank Peter again for taking the time to answer our questions. We look forward many more years of GenCon success.