Becky’s in the Back Seat, pt. 7: Day the Second, pt. 2: The Chaos and the Crush

Of course, the fact that I had only gotten about 2-3 hours of sleep the night before made it that Friday… so I was starting to find it incredibly difficult focusing on panels. Instead, we decided to hit the dealer’s room. I hadn’t a chance to see it on Thursday, so why not check it out on Friday.

This guy was impressively still and did this for the whole con. It’s a pretty impressive cosplay.

And as prior years, it was a madhouse.

For some reason this year it felt more hectic. It seemed that anyone who was filming at Comic Con was filming in the dealers’ room. So, getting around was… interesting. This year we made the rounds from Artists’ Alley to the video game section (if you haven’t seen a map of the dealers’ room, this is it). It really is as massive as the map looks.

And, of course, I have an amusing (or not so amusing but ultimately frustrating) story.

We were walking around the video game section of the dealers’ room. Of course there was plenty of neat con stuff available for sale… and some places were giving away free stuff. So, we were walking by the Ubisoft both and they were pushing people buying Assassin’s Creed 5. They were giving away swanky shirts for anyone who pre-ordered a copy of the game. And they had guys outside the booth trying to get people in to order a copy.

Of course, Ubisoft had just put their foot in their mouth at E3 when they were asked about the lack of playable female characters. Their reasoning, that it’s too difficult to animate the female avatars. Yet

April O’Neil and Casey Jones

they also said that there were going to be a lot more women in Dead Island… just not Assassin’s Creed.

Of course, I remembered that… and I was very disappointed by this. After all, how is it too hard for a game franchise that makes more money than Dead Island can’t manage to have playable female characters… or any other female characters..

Needless to say, it’s something that annoyed many female gamers.

So, I mentioned my concern and the guy trying to get people in had told me that I needed to have a thick skin. That this sort of stuff happens all the time and I shouldn’t let that stop me from playing Assassin’s Creed.

I’m probably making it sound a bit less patronizing than it actually was. I felt like he was talking down to me because I was a woman.

The interesting problem was that he was also trying to convince 2 other women to buy the game. After he had said that to me, he asked if I was going to buy it and I said I would have to think about it. He

This is just a small potion of the dealers’ room. There were some areas where you could walk or barely move…

then asked the other girls and they said no and walked off.

After spending a lot of time wandering the dealers’ room, we decided to call it day, go back to the hotel and get some drinks at the swanky tiki bar that is next to the pool of our hotel.

Later in the evening, while we were out in the rather large lobby of our hotel, near the restaurant and bar, Kevin Smith made a speedy beeline as though he were meeting someone and running a little late. I didn’t try to stop him to say hello because I could tell he was on his way somewhere. It’s a shame, because if there is one person I would love to have a conversation with, Kevin Smith is one of them. I have a lot of respect for him as a writer/director. It wasn’t meant to be though. perhaps one of these days I’ll actually get to meet Kevin Smith.