Long running US gaming magazine Game Informer has died, and as such, Retromags has unlocked its archive of old scans. No doubt plenty of stuff will come out of the woodwork in the coming days and weeks as a result. like This is a Sega booth at an unlikely convention: "Gen Con 1992" (or "1992 Gen Con" - I don't know its official name yet) from issue 7. Gen Con is a tabletop game convention (aka Dungeons & Dragons and friends), and in 1992 Sega showed up, showing off six Mega Drive and two Game Gear games. This event took place on August 20-23, 1992... and that's a Sonic 2 poster. If that game just happened to be playable... well you might have the secret origins for the Simon Wai prototype (certainly it would have to pre-date all our September builds). If not... well I did always like that poster. But of course, very little has been documented about this gathering, and as it wasn't meant to be about video games, I don't think anything has been written online about Sega's attendance until now. If you can prove Sonic 2 was there, it means an entire convention's worth of people saw a prototype before we did.
I can't imagine that this convention would've had the same security standards as a major toy fair. So yeah, if a prototype cart was ever stolen from a public event, this must've been it.
To be fair, before enthusiastic readers get carried away and start making YouTubr videos about it, it is merely a guess that it was stolen from this. But what evidence is there other than it took place after June (which is a decent guess as to when the Simon Wai ROM was created)? None of us were there. Just saying.
If I recall, Naka stated the Simon Wai prototype was stolen specifically from an event in New York. But Gen Con was in Indiana.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gencon/comments/13x64ek/comment/jmiqz5g/ - here is a comment from someone mentioning they "hassled the Sega rep about collaborating with Nintendo" in 1989. Clearly, Gen Con 1992 was not the first time they attended. If was, at the very least, the second time they were there. Or the fourth, if it was a yearly stop. Maybe they're mentioned in the program books available at each year's con? Either way, we've uncovered another gap in our knowledge regarding Sega and trade shows. (As an aside, Gen Con is namedropped in Sega Retro's article for E3, but it's only there because it was copy/pasted from the Wikipedia article that existed back in 2005, and hasn't been removed) This is true. From the original interview: If Naka is remembering correctly, then it wouldn't be Gen Con where the fabled "stolen cart" came from. Assuming, of course, that the Simon Wai ROM has anything to do with this stolen cart. Which I don't think we can. There are other ways that early version of Sonic 2 could have arrived in Hong Kong and been bootlegged to hell and back. What sort of toy shows even happen in New York? There is the North American International Toy Fair, but that took place in February back in 1992 - not exactly the time Sega would be showing off a game that was barely in production. Perhaps there were smaller trade shows happening in New York in "mid 1992," but I would have to do a bit more digging to figure out what would be the most likely place the cart could have vanished. Assuming, once again, that Naka isn't misremembering. So, er, um. Yeah. Let's not go crazy and think we found the secret origin's of the "Simon Wai Protoype."
I have heard that convention does dip into tech on some level, like with VR card games or such in "recent" years. Is it possible there were games based on physical games or RPGs to promote at the time, and Sonic was there just because "it's SEGA, of course Sonic's here"?
I did try to work out the timeline once - Sega took the Nick Arcade build to Summer CES (in May) but the Simon Wai prototype (or something very similar) was used for promotional screenshots (these ones) around the same time. With our so-called "alpha" build dated 21st August, I'd have assumed the Simon Wai prototype to be getting shown off in July or early August. I can't imagine Gen Con being a place where Sega take their latest top-level versions of games to show off. It may have been the same stuff as SCES (and maybe no Sonic at all!), but it would be nice to know. Someone must know.
Keep in mind we have 0 context for HOW the cart was stolen. It could've been from a volunteer, or even a low level sega employee, rather than just some random attendee pocketing it, so it's possible at literally any public showing. Leaks aren't exactly uncommon these days, and this would just be a 1990s equivalent.
Gen Con has only been in Indiana since 2003. For almost 20 years prior to that it was in Milwaukee WI. They moved to Indiana because they deemed that there was not enough hotel space in the area to accommodate the event. Source: I attended the final Gen Con in Milwaukee back in 2002 when I was in high school.
