Origins Reports?

[Tclynch]

Just curious how it"s going. I did hear ALOT of companies chose not to show or show by proxy. How's attendance?:confused:

[bwdemon]

Attendance was terrible on Thursday. The place just looked empty. Over at the White Wolf room, three of their sold-out tournament events had one player show up to each (and one of the guys was using generics). Yesterday, the crowd probably doubled in size, so that was good for the con and bodes well for the rest of it. All the White Wolf events were packed and things looked like they were getting back to normal.

As usual, game companies pretty much forgot about Origins this year, with no new releases to speak of. WotC isn't there at all, which just seems wrong. Computer gaming is absent for the first time in a long while and that's disappointing, too. Some vendors' booths are empty. It's just not quite right. Despite all this, there seems to be a decent crowd, so hopefully the convention will do well.

[Jhamin]

So what happened?

Is this just current trends or did something change about Origins that drove away companies and crowds?