Buzzkill

This Saturday, October 23rd, is the D&D Gamma World Game Day, which is the official release event for the game. My FLGS, Brookhurst Hobbies is running this event which I signed up for on their Meetup website. I'm subscribed to the daily digest of posts from their discussion boards and was shocked and saddened to find out that in order to play in the event, each player is required to purchase one of the Gamma World Booster packs. Booooo!!!

This seems to go against the grain of most of the Game Day events that I have played before. There has never been a requirement to buy anything. I'm just interested in playing the game and see if I would like it. It's like going to a car dealership and wanting to take a test drive of a car you're interested in and they make you buy the gasoline to do so.

So, what if I go to the store, buy a booster pack and decide that after I play the game that I don't like it enough to buy a copy?. What the hell am I going to do with the stupid cards I was "forced" to buy in order to play? It looks like a bad marketing strategy on behalf of Brookhurst Hobbies, thats for sure.

I will just have to decide not to go. Oh well, I can deal.