PAX
So it’s that time of year again … well, one of those times of the year. In this case I’m speaking of PAX, or what was originally called Penny Arcade Expo.
Which starts tomorrow. Or, at least, PAX East does.
I started attending the original PAX back 2008, back when there was only one of them a year. What is now known as PAX West, previously as PAX Prime, and before that simply as PAX. I happened to live in the area, and I’d always been into games, so checking it out was only natural. I had a lot of life drama going on that particular year and, despite having already purchased the tickets, I very nearly didn’t go. Instead of giving in to my many stresses, though, I decided to go and I decided to like going … before actually getting there.
Good thing for me that it was definitely worth going to and very much worth liking.
In fact I had so much fun that I’ve made it a personal mission to attend PAX (West) every single year … and I have not missed one since! In more recent years I’ve even started attending PAX East in addition to PAX West. After all it’s right in my back yard so I really have no excuse. It may be the same event and all, but the games being showcased and the panels that are being run aren’t always the same. This is doubly true for the indie games and small studios, which is what always gets the largest amount of my attention. That said, PAX West is still the best.
In the earlier years I was like most first-time con-goers in that I gravitated towards the AAA games, their keystone panels, and collecting all the cool swag. As time went on, however, my habits shifted. It’s not (only) that I have far less interest in AAA games these days, but more that you can find out so much about nearly every AAA game by spending mere minutes online. On the other hand there are a lot of fascinating indie games and studios out there and news about them isn’t quite as easy to find. As for panels, the keystone panels are usually streamed (and rarely have good loot anymore) so I can always watch those later. What I can’t do as well later, or at all, is attend the various panels that talk about more than just the game or games that a studio is working on. Panels that discuss trends (and struggles) in the industry; things such as the rise of certain game genres or increasing inclusitivity in games.
Along the way I also started loosely blogging my adventures at PAX, mostly for friends … when I remembered to clean up my notes for sharing, that is. One year I even cleaned it up well enough to post it on Imgur. That wasn’t the best platform for it, though, and I had been meaning to find a better one … like this blog here, which has been on my to-do list for as long as I started taking notes at PAX. In fact it was sorta the catalyst for getting me back into blogging again.
And now I’m here and now it is here.