Cosplay is popular at Gen Con (Courtesy Mike Salsbury)

Gen Con is one of the largest and annual gaming conventions in North America. The convention features nearly every form of gaming, most notably tabletop role-playing games, collectible card games, miniature wargames, board games, and computer games.

Gen Con is usually held in August, although the dates shift somewhat from year to year. It is also known for the ENnie Awards and True Dungeon, an immersive dungeon live-action role-playing game (LARP). The third and fourth editions of Dungeons & Dragons debuted at Gen Con, as did White Wolf's New World of Darkness.

According to Forbes, most Gen Con attendees are males in their 20s or 30s, and make more than $50,000 a year. Two-thirds of the guests spend at least $100 in the exhibit hall.

The gaming convention was originally launched by Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, in 1968 at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Gen Con's name is drawn from the phrase "Geneva Convention" and its roots in Lake Geneva. It settled in Milwaukee in 1985 and by 1990, had spread out across the globe.  Gen Con was purchased by Wizards of the Coast in 1997 along with TSR.  In 2002, it was in turn purchased by Peter Adkison, who moved Gen Con to Indianapolis in 2003.

More recently, Gen Con has suffered several setbacks: some of the remote conventions were cancelled, Lucasfilm filed a lawsuit against Gen Con LLC, and Gen Con filed for bankruptcy.

Most folks will go to Gen Con to game.  To that end, the Chicago Dungeons & Dragons Examiner has a great article on how to prepare. The Gen Con Survival Guide by Alan De Smet is another great resource on what to expect at Gen Con.

If you're a game designer, author, or artist who wants to pitch his or her work to a game company, Gen Con is the place to do it.  Author, game designer, and editor Jess Hartley explains how to pitch your ideas before, during, and after Gen Con:

Conventions such as GenCon may be the biggest chance that aspiring writers and artists get for one-on-one face-to-face connections with potential employers and networking contacts.