A Report from Nicobodo on the 2017 Kobe Game Market

In an attempt to bring BGG users coverage of the 2017 Kobe Game Market, which took place March 12 at the Kobe International Exhibition Hall, Saigo — who frequently translates game rules from Japanese to English and who tweets a lot about new JP games — has translated a report from JP board game journalist Nico, who runs Nicobodo. With Nico's permission, here is Saigo's translation of Nico's report from the 2017 Kobe Game Market. —WEM

Here is my brief report of my visit to the 2017 Kobe Game Market.

About the Venue

The venue for this event was the same as in 2016, the Kobe International Exhibition Hall, which is a few minutes' walk from the Shimin Hiroba (Convention Center) Station on the Port Liner.

Approximately 300 people were waiting in line by 8:00 in the morning — two hours before the fair's opening time — under the Port Liner railway viaduct.

ゲームマーケット8時時点で300人ぐらい待機列。 pic.twitter.com/zIXggjl0wc
— ライデン (@Vazquezdayo) March 11, 2017

Translation of the caption:"About 300 people wait in line at 8 o'clock for Game Market."

Inside the Venue: Board Game Shops

DDT had various rare games in stock, being a likely candidate for many visitors in line to visit their booth first.

Trick Play is the boardgame store located closest to the Game Market venue. At this Game Market, their stock of The Colonists and The Networks seemed to have gathered attention.

The manager of Gamestore Banesto poses.

Inside the Venue: Publisher Booths

Hobby Japan sold their latest games, along with expansions available only here at the show. Their game lottery also seemed well-received.

At the Oink Games booth, colored uniformly blue, they released their latest game: Startups.

At the booth of Group SNE, which is based in Kobe, some tabletop role-playing games were being promoted.

Inside the Venue: Used Game Booths

There were three booths mainly selling used games:

(Pricing note: To roughly convert from yen to U.S. dollars, take off the final two zeros, then subtract ten percent from the total, e.g., ¥2000 ~ US$18. —WEM)

Miscellaneous

The Nihon Board Game Taisho Award (Japan Boardgame Prize) was announced, with the people's choice being Codenames and the Yuumoa Award (U-more, or stores' choice) being Karuba.

Next to the Japan Boardgame Prize table was a kids' game section, where many families were playing games.

The board game "Kami no Kiseki" (Miracle) originated from the TV program "Derugeetsu" from the Hiroshima Home Television Co. The TV staff was filming the booth and table for a long time from the start. The details are expected to be aired.

The congestion peaked just before noon. The venue was just the right size, allowing one to view the entire venue.

A food court of about four stalls had many customers since there aren't many shops or restaurants nearby. Approximately fifty people lined up to wait before the kebab stall.

The gate at this section of the Exhibition Hall was left open so that people could move in and out of the hall, and the exhibitors at C booths near the gate looked cold. The exhibitor Puninokai told me to write on this blog that it was really cold, so let me emphasize that!

Lastly, let me report on the Joynt Game Factory booth. Taking advantage of their location at a corner, they used a large board to present a steampunk-ish decoding game. I was impressed by this idea, which constantly brought crowds around their booth.

What I Bought

Since my chances to play games have been declining, I bought more books than games. Still, I hope to play them soon.

Conclusion

So that's my brief report on the 2017 Kobe Game Market. I hope that the atmosphere of the show somewhat comes across though this.

This year, I visited board game shops and other places on the previous day. Having enjoyed board gaming for two days, it was a very satisfying trip.

Thanks to those of you I met during this trip to the Kansai region! I hope to make a visit next year again.

For more news and reviews on boardgames in Japan, you can visit the Nicobodo website.

A Report from Nicobodo on the 2017 Kobe Game Market

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