PAX 2006 Recap

Above and beyond the announcement of their videogame last Friday, PAX apparently passed pleasantly for the PA fans who made it to Bellvue, WA this past weekend. Various news organs have a look at what transpired. eToyChest has a journal of each day, with firsthand accounts and lots of pictures. Gamasutra covers the Penny Arcade Scholarship announced at the event; $10k towards an education to get yourself into the games industry. Kotaku was there to liveblog the keynote, while Joystiq covers the making a comic panel. For wrap-up, we have an IGN report, and the ever exhaustive 1up minisite for everything you'd want to know.

Comments

Panel!

[Rob T Firefly]

while Joystiq covers the making a comic panel.

After only two or three more cons, attendees will have made enough panels to make a full strip!

Pax 2006

[HeWhoRoams]

I was in attendence this year, it was a blast. You felt out of place if you didn't have a DS however, so friday night I got one from the local bestbuy. That place was a barren wasteland. Empty shelves, depleted stock, I got 1 of the 2 last DS's they had. The Tabletop room at the Red Lion was great, and it definitly benefitted from having it's own location. The smell... was not as bad as I was lead to believe, but not flowers by any means. Lots of free swag, demo's, contests, and raffles. Bawl's was everywhere... til they sold out, but Sno-bawl's was excellent! I took a few pictures, but haven't had a chance to digitize them and upload yet. Next year's bigger location in Seattle should make it an even bigger and more enjoyable event, and I highly recommend that video game inclined persons make it out at least once

Re:Ok I Admit

[RiotNrrd]

Here ya go!

It's small but it is about 30 mins after the doors opened. Please ignore the stuff in my teeth. I'll try to upload some more later.

For pics, I got three:

Tycho and Gabe
One half of one of the LAN rooms at PAX
Me + Frag Dolls

The entire con was a blast. Jerry and Mike were EXTREMELY polite. They got mobbed everywhere that they went and they did everything that they could to try to spend a few minutes speaking with as many people as possible. The Enforcers were incredibly cool and very helpful. If you get the chance to go next year, DO IT.

Re:Half a decade?

[cowscows]

I don't know. I really don't mean to crap on video game journalists, but as much as I enjoy video games, I don't think that I'd find spending five years writing about them particularly satisfying.

Turning a hobby into a job is a pretty good way to turn it into something you don't enjoy very much. And while playing video games can be fun, it's not the most productive thing in the world. I guess my point is, in the grand scheme of things, how much does this guy's job really matter? Maybe he feels that it's more important than that, or maybe he just does it for the money. I don't know. It reminds me of people who report on what celebrities wear to the academy awards or whatever. Sure, they sell magazines, and they're probably getting a decent paycheck. But at the end of the day, how can they really be satisfied with how trivial the result is of what they do with the bulk of their time. I would find that work soul crushing, no matter how much I got paid.

Better Blog than the one's posted:

[ghaltmann]

http://www.gamehelper.com/pax06/index.html has videos of not only gabe tycho and Khoo but of Gabe and tycho's WIVES... because we know you want to see that. Also there's an interesting video of the PAX line. I thought it was better. I also created it.

Re:It's cool to see two people...

[L-Train8]

The article erroneously says it was Monday's strip. Gabe and Tycho made several strips in advanced, so they wouldn't have to work on comics while PAX was going on. Monday's strip was the last of those premades. The strip created at PAX will be up tomorrow. The link will be http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/08/30

No Love For Sony

[L-Train8]

There was no love for Sony at the PAX this year. At the first Penny Arcade panel, an audience member took the mike and asked the crowd who had a DS. Over half the 2000 or so people in the room cheered or held up their actual DS. He then asked how many had PSP's, and the cheer was pretty small, maybe 1/4 or 1/5 of the DS response.

Minutes later, Gabe was asked what he thought about the PlayStation 3. He replied, "We won't be getting one at launch. It (the price) is ridiculous, and they need to know it's ridiculous." He added, "The future of gaming is the Wii-60," meaning, I guess, a combination of the XBox 360 and the Wii.

Microsoft and Nintendo also both had big booths (although Nintendo was only showing DS games, nothing for the Wii), but Sony didn't show up. It helps that both Microsoft and Nintendo have their headquarters a short 5 minutes from the venue, but there was zero Sony presence.