Two years ago Matt Conn founded GaymerX, a gaming convention oriented towards LGBTQ players. The idea behind the project was to bring the vibrant queer gaming community together for a few days of celebration, conversation, and, of course, gaming. Initially called GaymerCon, Conn's Kickstarter quickly met its exceeded its funding goal and drew backing from a number of notable video game developers.
After two successful gatherings, however, Conn announced via the GaymerX blog that this year's con would most likely be the last for the foreseeable future. The reason, as is often the case with indie endeavors like GaymerX, boiled down to funding:
“After all the glitter and stardust was done, we took quite a financial hit from GaymerX2 – we ended up having a hotel bill alone of over $90,000, not counting A/V, lighting, insurance, flights for out of town teams and equipment rentals, and with our Kickstarter for the event only hitting 24K and with slightly lower than expected attendance, we fell into a $50K hole.”
Financial difficulties and the reneging of sponsorship from sponsor NIS America have left GaymerX's organizers in the red and looking to rethink future events.
"I feel awful and betrayed," Conn told Joystiq earlier this week. "This just further puts a nail into our coffin if we don't figure out a revenue stream very quickly."
Undeterred, Conn is seeking support in spreading the word about Gaming In Color, a documentary focusing on queer gamers, which his team has completed and is now shopping around the independent doc circuit. Additionally Conn hopes to drum up enough interest to launch Read Only Memories, the team's LGBTQ cyberpunk point-and-click style adventure game.
GaymerX may live on in the future, Conn says, as GaymerXJam, a smaller planning event “focused around giving all gamers the ability to make a game exploring SOMETHING queer.”
Check out the trailer for Gaming in Color and Read Only Memories AFTER THE JUMP…
