PAX Prime 2011

PAX = Success
I attended this year's PAX Prime not to see any particular game, not to hear any particular speaker or panel, but because it feels great to be in the company of so many like-minded geeks and nerds. PAX's business operations head Robert Khoo confirmed that PAX Prime had approximately 70,000 people this year, making it the largest PAX yet.

Despite the event's size, the founders and organizers remain quite hands-on. I was impressed while waiting in line for the keynote to see Mr. Khoo walking the line, counting attendees so that potential attendees could be told the cutoff for when the venue was going to be full.

Exhibition Halls
The exhibition halls were, as always, impressively large. The place was packed, but the crowds were friendly and people were moving through pretty well, so clogs were rare. The PAX Enforcers are more active every year in managing the lines of people who are waiting to play a demo, have an autograph signed, or get into a panel, and this year was no different.



Halofest
Microsoft and Bungie's Halofest was maybe the single most impressive thing I saw at the expo this year. Never have I seen so much Halo gear, games, toys, props and assorted paraphernalia in one place. 2011 was the inaugural year for Halofest, and it did not disappoint. There were life-sized figures from several of the games, but the dioramas of combat scenes were the most impressive.

I'm willing to bet it will be at forthcoming PAXes for the foreseeable future, and may even be an independent traveling exhibit in select cities around the country. There is that much stuff, and it is that good.

Indie Games
One of the cooler things I experienced this year was the "indie games" area. There was one smaller exhibition hall dedicated solely to independent developers and games. Unfortunately I did not find this treasure trove until the last day of the show, but I will definitely be returning there at future shows. The neat thing was that the crowds were much less dense in this hall and you had a real opportunity to not only play the games on display, but talk to the developer who made the game.


This area also had a zombie makeup booth where you could be "zombified."



Camaraderie
The people are what keep bringing me back to PAX. We are all so similar there, no matter what type of gaming or geekery we are each interested in. I happened to run into one of the volunteer PAX Enforcers at the airport when I was heading home, and he summed it up well: "No matter how geeky you are, you're not the geekiest one there." Simply put, one feels at ease and among friends. Who wouldn't want that?

All photos are on flickr here.

PAX Prime 2010

The Penny Arcade crew continue to do it right. Despite the 67,600 attendees during the course of the weekend, the "con" experience was great: friendly people, effective line management, and the volunteer Enforcers were awesome.

Panels

There was an endless variety of panels to attend and topics to learn about. There was simply too much available to do everything one might find interesting, so picking and choosing was a must. I attended the Bungie panel on Halo Reach, a live taping of Major Nelson's podcast and a panel on academic research related to gaming.

Bungie

The Reach developers shared some insight into the creative process and thought behind the design of this final game in the Halo franchise to be developed by Bungie. Among other things, they showed video of some of the motion capture techniques used which was overlaid on game footage so you could see how it was integrated into the game. The captured facial expressions for the voiceover actors was quite amazing.

Major Nelson

Xbox Live's Major Nelson put on a pretty good show. The usual cast from his podcast was there live, and the resulting podcast was posted that weekend. They took a lot of questions from the audience, and everyone who asked a question was given some extra swag. Plus, they gave away probably ten of the new special edition Xbox 360 controllers and the grand prize giveaway was the very first publicly available Halo Reach edition of the newly redesigned Xbox 360.

Academic Research and Game Studies
I didn't quite know what to expect with this panel, but I probably should have since it was exactly what the title says. This was a panel of researchers, some still graduate students, who were adapting more traditional areas of social science research to the area of gaming. It was a little bit dry, and correspondingly I did not take any pictures. It wasn't too bad, but I wasn't the intended audience of potential grad students or teachers who were interested in formal research about how people interact with and play games. Just goes to show the variety of topics available at PAX.

Exhibit Hall

With the main theatre located off-site at the nearby Benaroya Hall, there was much more space available for exhibitors this year. There were two "wings" of the exhibit hall and more than once I became turned around and had to keep wandering to find something I remembered I had seen before and wanted to revisit.

All manner of gaming-related companies were represented, from game developers and specialty hardware manufacturers to clothing companies and book publishers. Countless videogames were available to look at and play: Rock Band 3, Duke Nukem Forever, Metroid Other M, EVE Online, Halo Reach, Fallout: New Vegas and a lot of smaller indie games from all types of developers. The focus of PAX continues to be on games, but a number of related industries like comics and to some extent movies and T.V. also have enough crossover appeal to warrant a presence.

Characters and costumes

Another cool and fun thing that has become more and more prevalent at PAX over the years is the effort that people put into making costumes of their favorite characters. Taken to its extreme, this is called cosplay and involves live roleplaying or posing in-character. Below are a few great examples from this year.

The last PAX I went to before this one was 2008, when it was really beginning to become a huge event, and the waiting in lines for virtually everything took away a lot of the enjoyment of the show. This year, the Penny Arcade crew appeared to have addressed the line-waiting problems with pre-planning (taped or roped off line queues along with plenty of Enforcers to answer questions, keep people informed and play games involving the line-waiters) and active monitoring (counting of people in line versus room capacity, for the largest events there was a twitter feed specifically for updates on line length and remaining room capacity).

What this convention continues to have that makes it so enjoyable is the community. Everyone is there to have a good time, and there is something for everyone and every type of gamer. The volunteer Enforcers also make a difference - they are not simply temps hired to monitor just another convention floor, they are gamers themselves and have just as much enthusiasm as the regular attendees. As the Penny Arcade crew have said before, they create the opportunity and space for the show, but it is the gamers who create the atmosphere and the community.

Many more pictures are at my flickr page.

Access granted.

PAX 2010 is on!

Phoenix Comicon 2010

I have family and friends in Phoenix and lived there many years before moving to California, so deciding to attend this year's Phoenix Comicon over Memorial Day weekend was an easy one.

The variety of interests at the Phoenix Comicon this year was quite broad, though the main themes were pretty clearly comics (characters, art, artists, authors, accessories) and science fiction (authors, movies, books, costumes). There was a smattering of gaming-related events like freeplay sessions of Rock Band (and Wil Wheaton's Rock Band all-nighter), but gaming was not a main focus.

Phoenix Comicon has been around for nine years, but has not seemed to be very visible until the last several years. None of my friends who still live in Phoenix were aware of it when I told them I was going. I think with the explosive growth and commercialization of the San Diego Comicon, more people are aware of cons in general, and some people may want to find a less crowded, less in-your-face and less commercialized version of the con experience. The Phoenix Comicon provides that alternative and has become more visible as a result.

There were a ton of people in all types of costumes. It was obvious a lot of people were having a lot of fun:






There were writers, artists and actors there whom you could talk to, have your picture taken with, and whom would probably sign something if you brought it to them. Some pretty well-known people were there, including Stan Lee, Levar Burton and the previously mentioned Wil Wheaton.


Unicorn Pegasus Kitten ("UPK")
Wil Wheaton and John Scalzi had a "Super Happy Fun Time" panel wherein they discussed various Internet-related items (as you do), a little about their respective backgrounds, and revealed a certain fan fiction writing contest (deadline for entry was June 30) and subject painting which I have to say I am glad I was witness to. Phoenix Comicon 2010 will likely be remembered as the beginning of the epoch of UPK storytelling. This was the scene just moments after the unveiling:


Here is a closeup of the painting taken after the panel:


There are a number of crazy Internet-Wheaton-Scalzi memes going on here, my favorite being the Wheaton infamous clown sweater. You can read about that, along with what else is going on in that painting, at the link to the writing contest above.

Levar Burton
I'm a big fan of Levar Burton from watching Reading Rainbow as a youth, and also Star Trek: The Next Generation. I had hoped to see him at this event, but hadn't planned to have my picture taken with him. There was a portrait service there that scheduled photos with various of the celebrities who were at the con, and I just happened by the photo booth right at the end of the session with Mr. Burton. I thought I probably wouldn't have another opportunity to have a professional portrait taken with him, so I decided to do it. The portrait is on the portrait company's flickr site, linked here. I elected to provide that link instead of posting the portrait here directly as the portrait company has reserved all of its copyright rights.

Next Year
Overall, this was a really fun event to attend. It ran the entire weekend, starting with Thursday evening preview events. I attended only on Sunday, but it looked like there were plenty of things to see and panels to attend if one were to go for the entire show. The price is right, too. I believe it was only $35 for a full event pass. I'll probably go again next year as it's a great bonus to a summer trip to see family and friends.

Penny Arcade Expo 2008, the review

It was definitely another successful year for PAX. Initial estimates are that 58,500 people attended over the three days. That number of people, even in a large convention center, has its disadvantages, but not necessarily because of the number itself. More on that later.

First, the highlights.

1. Meeting Wil Wheaton.

Need I say more? Probably not, but this was the coolest thing I did, so let me throw some words down here. I missed Wil's keynote at last year's expo, but listened to it online, checked out his blog, and have been a fan ever since. We are the same age, so many of his gaming and life experiences have been similar to mine, and it is both fun and nostalgic to read his writings about his life growing up, and familiar and interesting to read his writings about his life now. I "get" the Star Wars, Family Guy and most of the musical and gaming references.

I was looking forward to reading some of Wil's books, and after this meeting, I was not disappointed:

The "Hot Cocoa Box Sampler" is a limited edition collection of writings from his books, his blog, and several other sources. "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" is his latest book, and tells stories from his youth growing up and coming of age in the 70s and 80s. I have to say, regarding the picture on the cover of that book, I did not have pajamas exactly like that, but mine were similar (full-length zipper and footsies, you know it), and you'd better believe I had a bicycle with a banana seat!

Wil was an exceptionally cool guy to meet. I threw him a little curve ball when paying for the books by literally presenting him with shiny gold rocks. He recognized them right away and said that they were merely pyrite and not worth anything, to which we both then said "...but they're shiny gold rocks." I'm not going to start The Great Shiny Gold Rock Controversy of 2008, but I will say that Wil recognized the value of what I had thought to bring and credited me accordingly. I did also present several sheets of a cotton/linen blend paper printed with green and black ink, which he happily accepted. Surprisingly, no one had thought to literally bring him shiny gold rocks before I did. I wish I'd taken a picture of them, but alas, it was such a dark secret I dared not leave any trail of evidence prior to their unveiling. Do not be surprised if that was the first and only time such an audacious offering will be recognized.

I also went to Wil's panel, where he did some readings and then Q&A. Great stuff. He didn't just read, he did a bit of acting and made the stories fun:



2. The Exhibition Hall

This is great every year. It's a lot of fun to walk around and see all of the latest or upcoming releases from developers and often, be able to talk to the developers themselves. The most visible thing was the displays for the upcoming iterations of Guitar Hero and Rock Band:



Ubisoft was demoing the new Raving Rabbids game on the Wii, which was participatory like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, except the "instrument" is you:


The main exhibition hall was probably 1/2 to 2/3 larger than last year's hall, so the show is growing along with the number of attendees.

The not-so-much highlight

The only thing that was not as cool this year was the waiting in lines. For everything. This has been reported elsewhere, and apparently the PAX organization is aware of it and will work on this for next year. The convention hall was crowded, yes, but not overwhelming. When forced to wait in a line, however, things became ugly. Not the attendees, just the waiting. As attendees, we all had similar "line-waiting" stories to share, so we all got along fine. It's just not very fun to wait 45 minutes to an hour or more to see a panel or presentation and not get in. This discouraged me from attending a couple of the panels because I wanted to spend time in the exhibition hall or just exploring instead.

Hopefully, some "pre-reservation," armband or another system will be implemented next year. It would seem that attendees could, if not reserve a spot when buying their admission pass, choose which panels or talks they want to see for sure upon checking in on the first day of the show. A similar system is already in use at PAX for those who wish to attend the band performances in the evenings (first 4,000 in line at the beginning of the day), so extending this to other functions should not be difficult.

The Omegathon

PAX would not be complete without the Omegathon and particularly the Omegathon finals. This may have been the most highly attended event of the show. This year's ultimate showdown was with "VS. Excitebike," which was apparently only released in Japan.


A version of this game was released in the U.S., and most gamers from the classic era will remember it. The Omegathon finals is the culmination of an elimination tournament over the entire course of the expo, where the two remaining gamers face off to determine the true champion. The tournament games range from classic and the latest videogames to real-world physical manifestations like Jenga. It's quite a feat to win, and the past two years the prize has been an all-expenses-paid trip to next year's Tokyo Game Show along with $5,000 spending money. This year the prize also included custom-painted Penny Arcade-themed gaming consoles.

A Community Gathering

Ultimately, like years past, the Penny Arcade Expo is about bringing together the community of gamers. All types are welcome, from board gamers, to PC gamers and console gamers. There's a little mix of other related phenomena like cosplay also, which adds to the fun. This year, I believe the number of attendees may have pushed the facility to its limits, so it will be interesting to see how the arrangements are handled next year. Line management is a solvable issue, so hopefully next year will be even better.

PAX 2008, Day One

The best thing from day one was the exhibit hall. It appears to be almost twice the size of last year's hall, with tons of booths, displays, open consoles and PCs for demos.

My friend Shawn and I had two bad "line-waiting" experiences. The first was waiting to enter the convention itself at 2p. We waited probably an hour, winding through one of the larger exhibition rooms. The thing that made it not enjoyable at all was that we weren't able to see the presentation we wanted, which was the Speed Run gaming video. First of all, the scheduling appears to have been poorly planned as the Speed Run presentation was scheduled to begin at 2p, which was right when the doors were supposed to open. So, in order to make the presentation on time, I suppose one would have had to have been within the first several hundred people admitted to the convention right at 2p.

We weren't, so we didn't make it over there until just before 3p. It turns out that the DVD they were going to play somehow didn't work, so we didn't miss it anyway. We asked if they were going to show it again, but they didn't know. Plus, it was going to be shown via projector, and the glare from the windows directly behind us didn't allow a decent viewing anyway.

The second experience was waiting to see Ken Levine's keynote speech. To make a long story short, we waited in line for about 30 minutes before being told the room was at capacity and we could wait for the next event in that room if we wanted to.

We didn't.

On to something cool, there was this group of guys outside on the sidewalk who had modded GameBoys to play music, and they were making some really good stuff. This was the setup:



Also, in the main Exhibit Hall I ran into the same woman who last year was promoting the Conan game, but this year she was promoting Saints Row 2. Quite stunningly beautiful, and as sweet and nice as can be. She's the one on the left:



And we'll end with this one:

First leg of PAX trip complete

I flew into Portland, OR, last night to stay with a couple of friends. I flew Alaska/Horizon airlines and they actually served complimentary beer in-flight! Not something weak like Bud Light, a nice amber ale, "Drop Top Amber Ale" from Widmer Brothers. Good stuff, particularly when it's free.

After dinner, we went to Doug Fir Lounge to watch The Walkmen. The venue was really cool -- basement-level with a 1960's decor and logs all around the walls, almost like a huge ... log cabin. Makes for a nice feel and good sound. I liked the band, too. Their singer has a heluva voice. I heard shades of Bob Dylan in the way he led into some notes, but he could wail like Bono or Chris Martin of Coldplay.

This morning I'm playing Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots on PS3. I'm still in the early stages of the game, familiarizing myself with the controls and relearning the history and past events in the series. It was a bit frustrating to have an eight minute install before being able to play, but hopefully that means shorter level load times overall throughout the game.

Penny Arcade Expo 2008

It draws near on the horizon, a bit more real now that I've received my ticket to ride:



I went in 2005 and 2007 and am truly looking forward to this year.

All of gaming's major players will be there as exhibitors, as well as independent and small companies and developers. One new feature this year will be "The PAX 10," which will provide a forum to promote independent games. This is a collection of the top ten independent games, selected by a panel of experts gathered by the Penny Arcade guys, from submissions which will be voted on by attendees during the show.

August 29 - 31. More to follow.

Possible clan names - inspired by todolistblog

This post immediately reminded me of my brainstorming session to come up with a clan name in Halo 2 for my group of buddies. I dug up my notes from back in 2004, saved no doubt because of some brilliant naming nuggets which I will now reveal to the world:We ended up going with Lemming Army. Incidentally, my buddy Shawn and I extended the exalted lineage of "Lemming Army" by using it as our team name when we captured third place in the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory tournament at PAX 2005.

The funniest ones to me have either the word "biscuit" or "ferret" in them.