PAX? What the hell is PAX? Well friend, let me tell you! While I sit on my dorm room couch typing this article, my excitement for the coming weekend is nearly unquantifiable - because I'm headed out to Seattle for PAX Prime! Oh right, the answer to your question...
PAX stands for Penny Arcade Expo, which is a series of public gaming festivals that began in Seattle in 2004, but can now be found in Boston, San Antonio, and Melbourne as well. Being the original show, PAX Prime is hosted in August in Seattle, this year from August 28th to the 31st. PAX East is usually held early-mid spring in Boston, PAX South in San Antonio, and PAX Australia in, you guessed it, Melbourne!
But what is this Penny Arcade you speak of? Well, back in 1998, webcomics were on the rise. One of these was Penny Arcade, a gaming culture focused strip created by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. With their regular postings every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the duo are one the longest running and most successful webcomics, with 3.5 million readers as of 2010. They became some of the first to actually earn a living from their webcomic, and remain some of the few still to do so. Jerry and Mike founded PAX in 2004 as a celebration of gaming culture, and evidenced by its expansion, it has become renowned the world over.
Now that a little background has been given, onward to the reasons why PAX is awesome!
1. New Games!
One of the biggest reasons to attend PAX is to test out all the new games that will soon be released. Along with tons of indie devs, many big-name developers, such as Blizzard (above, who demoed Overwatch at PAX East 2015), Gearbox, Ubisoft, and 2K Games love to show off their new titles that are still in development. Not only does it create hype surrounding the game, but it also lets developers hear feedback straight from the horse's mouth - us, the gamers! We get to preview something very few get to experience, far before its release to the general public, all while helping to make it better overall. Is that not a win-win?
2. Panels!
What you see above is just a handful of the attendees of the show, crowded into an auditorium to listen/watch a developer or famous YouTuber spill the beans on a new project, ramble, or just generally showcase something awesome in general. One of the fan-favorites is Acquisitions Incorporated, a series where a party Dungeons & Dragons players go on varying absurd adventures. It's usually posted on YouTube, so seeing all the shenanigans live is a real treat.
3. Free Stuff!
Practically every booth at PAX gives out oodles of free stuff, including the event itself. Many of these items are exclusive to the event, and thus carry high value on the secondary market as well. From scarves to stickers, beta codes to skateboard decks, all the way to raffles for games, hardware, and even five-figure priced gaming computers, coming home with a sack of free stuff after each day is something that makes me even more excited for next weekend (except the fact that I have to bring an extra suitcase to get it all home with).
4. Pinny Arcade!
Yes, a spin on words, but a defining part of the PAX experience nonetheless! Pinny Arcade is a series of high quality pins that are designed by developers and other sponsors attending the show. These are sold to the lucky few who rush to get them at each booth before they inevitably sell out. Certain pins are printed in such few quantities that an official guide to pin trading had to be created, and very rare pins will sometimes sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars online. The truly dedicated bear sashes coated with pins from PAX history, and with new sets released at every PAX, the days of pin collecting will surely live on.
5. Concerts!
Every year, the surrounding clubs and venues host geek culture concerts, with underground artists showcasing their newest mixes as the crowd goes wild. Except this year, it's a little different. On Friday the 28th, the man, the legend Steve Aoki is putting on a FREE concert for PAX Prime attendees. Lord knows the place will be packed to the gills almost instantly, and I really can't wait!
6. Old-School Games!
Every PAX has free-play sections for consoles and more, but one of my favorite is the retro free-play section. From NES with Super Mario, to an Atari 2600, relics of gaming history are on display to both touch and play with, allowing newcomers and enthusiasts to get their hands on defining pieces of our culture.
7. Steel Battalion!
This goes hand in hand with the previous reason, but is really exclusive to PAX East. Steel Battalion is an original Xbox game (I can't say Xbox one anymore, shame) released in 2002 where players control gigantic walking mechs, or "VT's" (vertical tanks) via a 40 button controller complete with two joysticks, metal toggle switches, radio frequency tuner, gear lever, eject button, and a pedal box. That eject button is crucial as well, as if the player does not press it fast enough when their mech is being destroyed, their character dies permanently in that their saved game is deleted from the system. For realism, it's covered by a plastic flip case.
This game is incredibly rare, and PAX East is the one of the only places on the planet where ten instances of the game are linked up on a local network, allowing players to have an experience unlike anything ever before. Tournaments are run each day, and I hope to claim another PAX East gold medal in 2016.
8. Parties!
As many know, us gamers are kind of skittish, borderline anti-social at some times. But when you put a bunch of us together in a room with loud music, we're finally comfortable with those around us, and we get let off the chain! Complimented by every manner of blinky lights that go along with tech and geek culture, big parties are hosted yearly by huge developers. While we all go ham, sometimes we get heated and decide to settle our dispute in that developers multiplayer arena! In a scene straight out of a movie, cheering fans crowd around a line of computers as random attendees take their seats in what equates to a gamified Fight Club (minus the 'Don't talk about it' portion, because I'm doing that right here).
9. The Omegathon!
Every PAX, random attendees are selected by the expo itself to compete in the Omegathon, a multi-round varied-game tournament taking place over each day of the expo, culminating in an insane final round as the closing ceremony to the show. The final round always comes straight out of left field, with the game of choice being incredibly random. As seen above, the final round a few years ago was the dreaded claw machine.
10. Cosplay!
Costume play, also known as cosplay, really equates to nothing more than adults playing pretend. But hell, I do it too sometimes (granted, mine are more military themed and less so on the fantasy side). Some folks devote months and tons of money towards developing their costumes, which range from pop-culture favorites like Doctor Who or the Ghostbusters (as seen here), all the way to full resin-based suits of bulky Warhammer 40,000 space marine armor.
And last but not least... the sheer scale of it all!
I know this list only says it for ten reasons, but one of the best parts about PAX is the scale of event. Prime spills into the surrounding streets of the Washington Convention Center along with hotel auditoriums and conference rooms, while East spans the three floors and hangar sized expo hall of the Summer Street Convention Center in Boston. Estimated attendance of East 2015 was somewhere in the realm of 35,000 each day. I've seen East grow near exponentially since my first attendance to any PAX show in 2013, and with 2015 being my first Prime, I can only expect it to blow my mind in terms of scale.
The photo below shows the queue line for East on Friday, the day of least attendance, in the wee hours of the morning, far before the show opens at 10 AM. These lines become something of a social event of their own, with attendees trading and battling Pokémon on handheld games, a beach ball (or more recently, an inflatable whale) being batted around.
With so many people at the show, I can't wait to meet new gamers and have an unforgettable experience on the West Coast! I'll be posting a recap after each day of the show if I can, to give you all more insight into the world of gaming conventions!
