A Quick Look At PAX East
Every fandom has a Mecca. Every fandom features multiple “must go” places, or rather, events that further along products and ideas that fuel that fanbase for which they are created. These are usually in the form of conventions (such as San Diego Comicon). In gaming, there are several major events, including E3, GenCon, and PAX. This past month was one of the several incarnations of PAX (the Penny Arcade Expo), the gaming convention started by the Penny Arcade web comic guys, known as PAX East in Boston, M.A.
To break it down, this con is a sort of celebration to everything gaming. It features major gaming players like EA, Blizzard, and Wizards of the Coast, but it also features the lesser known “indie” grass-roots companies as well (a good example being the now popular “Minecraft” in the past). These sorts of cons, especially PAX, also feature different “types” of gaming. Collectible Card games, Table Top games, and old fashioned board games are also among the bleeps and bloops of video game paraphernalia.
Here are some dedicated source links from/for PAX conventions:
Pictures from PAX East.
Follow the PAX cons on twitter
Sadly I personally was not able to attend. It is on my list of places I would like to go to in the future (both PAX East in Boston and PAX Prime in San Diego).
So here are some sources of in depth media coverage:
Head over to Joystiq to see some pictures and articles that display some of the sparkling new games and game DLC (including some rather nice Borderlands2 updates…like a new class that looks pretty killer). Joystiq also features insights on a a wide spectrum of happenings within the con, including looking at the tabletop games and an interview or two.
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Hit up Kotaku for even more videos, articles, and video game announcements. Kotaku focuses mostly on videos covering information on games and events. They have a few interviews with fans, some cosplay pictures, and follow some of the more humerus “marketing tricks” from a few game studios.
one of my favorites is this video that is also Borderlands2 related:
Some PAX news is strange… Like Capcom “remastering” their ye-olde Ducktales game… I mean, sure, such a thing as graphic revisions and video game recycling is not entirely unheard of but it is incredibly rare. I will say that I think this is Capcom’s response to the somewhat increasing interest in video game emulators and derelict games. For those “not in the know”, an emulator is a computer program that “emulates” a console’s programming to allow you to play a video game on your computer without having the physical copy of the console or game “cartridge”. On one hand, it is a form of piracy. On the other hand, when is the last time you went into a game store and saw the newest NES, Dreamcast, SNES, or PS1? Many times, the only way to find these increasingly rare consoles and their ever so scarce games is to pirate the base computer codes for them, or fan made mods via an emulator. To be honest, there’s a few games I wouldn’t mind seeing “remastered” to today’s graphics and game mechanics (Metal Warriors, Star siege, Conker’s Bad Furday…actually, I want a “Bad Furday” sequel and not a remaster, and Earth Worm Jim come quickly to mind).
http://youtu.be/6N0PzqF9gWY
In closing, I will say this:
One thing that always amazes me about PAX, is that when compared to other video game aimed conventions, PAX tends to focus more on the players rather than the corporate interest. Other conventions, such as E3, are mostly industry targeted. It’s all about corporations comparing controller sizes against each other and trying to “outdo” one another and put out the next big thing before holiday time. But PAX never seems to be like that. PAX is about gaming, pure and simple (they even went so far as to ban the so called practice of “booth babes“, which are “attractive” girls hired by game companies to try and lure customers to specific booths. It’s both rather sexist and demeaning of the industry as a whole in my opinion… let alone alienating to the female and non-hetero-oriented gamer population). It is so in tune to the gamer experience that it even defends players (obscene language in link, beware) when corporations turn on the customers themselves. It is for these reasons, that I plan on attending a PAX event at some point in the future.
–N00basaurus.
