So...the demo wasn't engaging enough?  I'm not sure where Cheese Weasel guaranteed sales?  I miss something?

Edit: Also a point might be that Cheese Weasel might reduce participation (8 per card instead of 10?  4 cards instead of 5?)  so Questers aren't as rushed trying to get through all the vendors on every card.

What I'm saying is that I read the other person's post this way: some vendors didn't like that some attendees were coming to their booths, standing (perhaps impatiently?) through a demo, then essentially saying "Yeah yeah yeah, gimme the stamp". The actual instances may have been more or less outright rude than that. But I will say when I was in the Hall and we were on CW's list, there were definitely people coming to the booth who entered into the interaction with zero interest in what we were about, and maintained that attitude throughout, and then got their stamp and left.

So put yourself in a vendor's shoes. You want to sell and promote your game. You are a small booth, with limited staff. There are people approaching who would like to try your game, because they are inherently interested in it. But standing in front of you are two people who are demoing the game and are listening to your spiel, but are clearly not interested in the game and are only standing there listening to you so you can stamp their card.

What would you think of that scenario? Is it your fault, that your demo just wasn't engaging enough? Would you think that you had the ability to make anyone interested, regardless of their attitude coming in, and you are somehow failing? Or might you be irritated, and prefer to be spending your time with the potential customers who would like to try your game, but are...yep, there they go, walking past because you are busy, and you can't just say "you're clearly not interested, here's your stamp, go away."

That's not a slam against CW. It's not a slam against the majority of the people who were trying to get stamps. It's A) how I read that other post, and B) partially what I experienced myself at my own booth. In my own experiences, no one was outright rude. But there were clearly times when someone was mentally tapping their foot and looking at their watch, even if they weren't physically doing that.

And that could be irritating to a vendor. If you don't see that, there's not much else I can say.

Again, that was a small percentage of the people I personally interacted with, to me outweighed easily by the others who did want to hear our deal. But if it was more common with another vendor, or they felt like it was more common, they might have complained. That's all.

Its a numbers game.  You want people to come by.  Some might be interested, some not. The hope is you get people who will be interested to stop by who otherwise would not have.  If you get new people and only a small fraction are interested, maybe it's the product. :)

It's also entirely possible that nothing changed, few to no one complained, and GC got rid of CW for other reasons entirely.

I had sort of assumed that they had changed to selling pins precisely because they're selling - demos are free but to get the pin you have to cross the vendor's palm with lucre. 

For me it's a wash - I didn't do Cheese Weasel, and I don't collect pins.  But I can't say I like the idea that it's pay to play now.  Someone with barely enough money to buy the badge could participate in Cheese Weasel, but they're priced out of the pin game.  That seems like a shame.

In the program guide there was one of the puzzle hunt puzzles. 

If you missed the puzzles but are are interested in them someone created a Facebook group that has them 

Cheese Weasel's webpage has also not been updated in more than two years, so is there really no chance that they were not so much kicked out as just kind of disappeared on their own?

*raise eyebrows*  Wow.

But to answer the question, yes, no chance.  Also, no asteroids crashed through their booth destroying all that I've heard reported...

Haha.  If they were there, that makes sense.  Goes to show how little time I manage to spend in the Exhibit Hall anymore; I really do need to tell people "no but for real, I will absolutely not spend time with anyone between 10 and 6 when not volunteering" so I can actually see the whole thing every year like I used to.

Cheese Weasel chose to leave on their own terms.

What was Cheese Weasel?  Something about a ConQuest app and doing Demos?  People seem to really have enjoyed it.

--edit

Went back and read this thread from the beginning, not just the second page.

That sounds like fun.  I'm sorry I missed it.