PAX Diary Day 1
We dive headlong into the first day of Penny Arcade’s 2006 Expo
Tags: Penny Arcade Expo Categories: Features, Tech Features
Posted by Peter Lytle on Aug 31st, 2006
It is now 2 am and the first day of PAX 2006 has drawn to a close. My head is spinning and it’s difficult to find closure. This is not because I have been bombarded by booth babes, flashing lights and pounding noise. It’s because I have spent the entire day surrounded by gamers and game developers who were just excited to be there and show/be shown the fruits of our industry. The Penny Arcade Expo is the cultural counterpart to the now defunct Electronic Entertainment Expo (known colloquially as E3). Where E3 would feature the largest corporations and their pop hits, PAX hosts keynote speakers, gamer concerts and an exhibition hall stocked with small independent studios. All of this is accessible to you and me, the average geek. PAX 2006 is the third installment of this now hallowed convention, and today has so far shown itself to be a worthy successor.
Filling Bellevue’s Meydenbauer facility almost to capacity, PAX 2006’s first day was a bustle of activity with eager con-goers maneuvering alongside deadline-watching exhibitors and videogaming VIPS. Adorning all four levels of the center are large banners drawn by the Penny Arcade team, displaying various memorable events and characters from the book, along with artwork from the upcoming fighting card game featuring the PA protagonists. There are rooms for videogame tournaments, tabletop tournaments, PC freeplay, console freeplay, exhibitors, panelists, speakers, Bring Your Own Computer events and more. The scope of this event (the entirety of geekdom) is mind-boggling, and difficult to try and quantify in a single diary entry. However, the layout of PAX helps to further separate it from other, more commercial entertainment cons: right outside the main exhibition and concert halls is a huge beanbag wireless lounge. It is always full of lounging fans and VIPs (Mike and Jerry, founders of Penny Arcade, seem to frequent this spot often). It does impede foot traffic a bit, but this perfectly exemplifies the more laid-back and friendly feel of this convention. Even though there are 17,000-odd people attending, it still feels quite personable, as if you all share some common ground or are at some level, already friends.
The moment the doors opened at 2 pm, Penny Arcade fans flooded in (most made a beeline for the BAWLS vendor, as humorously perceived by Mike’s and Jerry’s friend Porkfry). However, there was much more to do than simply mill about the hallways. There were a number of panels, demonstrations, competitions, a party, and a concert. The exhibition hall will remain closed until tommorow, so there was not much to see there.
Along with console tournaments such as Super Smash Brothers Melee, Friday featured the first part of the Omegathon Competition. The Omegathon has been likened to a videogame Olympics, pitting Omeganauts (chosen at random from PAX preregistrants) against each other in many different types of head-to-head competitions. However, the real draw of the Omegathon is the prize. Every year, the Omegathon prize becomes more and more outrageous. The first year, it was a $15,000 videogame collection. This year, it is a fully tricked-out Scion (it is said that the prize car’s value was doubled by the number of purchased add-ons). Today, the first game, Diceland was played, and unworthy/unlucky Omeganauts have already been cut.
The first of Friday’s events was a preview of Neverwinter Nights 2. Although the introduction movie seemed rather uninspired, the actual meat of the game should have RPG fans drooling. Neverwinter Nights 2 will feature a system for character generation, combat and dialogue that better represents the D&D rules and the Forgotten Realms Universe than anything on the market previously. Visually, Neverwinter Nights 2 seems to perfectly capture the deep, characterful essence of the Forgotten Realms world. The development team promises a quality experience in the same vein of the previous RPG titles such as Neverwinter Nights, the Baldur’s Gate series and the Fallout Series: “Neverwinter Nights will be a story-centric game…not open ended like Oblivion,” said community manager Shane Defreest. “Black Isle’s writing was a little darker, but Neverwinter Nights 2 will be truly epic in scale.” Neverwinter Nights is expected to ship about October 16th.
The second event was a keynote speech by Alex St. John, most famous for his part in the creation of the ubiquitous DirectX software. Alex had a humorous, commanding and totally irreverent presence on stage as he related the story of how Windows became the number-one gaming platform. After pelting the crowd with ping pong balls and illegally lighting up an enormous cigar on stage, Alex told the crowd of how he wined and dined potential developers and Microsoft executives into backing DirectX with fake Roman orgies (for which he was almost fired), parties with the band GWAR (for which he was not fired; Microsoft execs were not able to tell that one of GWAR’s big costumes was in fact an 8-foot mock-up of female genetalia) and botched fake massed alien abductions of developers which resulted in a hostage situation (for which he was most definitely fired). As his ribald tale wound to a close, Alex asked the crowd to look for a specially-marked ping pong ball he had thrown earlier. The finder, who happened to be a journalist from Gamespot, won a massive Gateway gaming rig. However, the journalist graciously threw the ball back into the crowd to let another con-goer have a chance at winning.
The Keynote Speech was followed closely by the Women In The Gaming Indistry Panel, which discussed women participating and working in this stereotypically male area. The panel was chaired by Morgan Romine/Rhoulette (Ubisoft/Fragdolls), Elaine Chase (Senior Brand Manager, Wizards Of The Coast), Arielle Jaffery-Makrs (Turbine) and Jenny Bendel (ArenaNet). Issues concerning sex, gender and the videogame industry were discussed, such as the use of sexuality to boost sales, sexism in the industry and women integrating into the “gamer” lifestyle. The use of psychographics was mentioned as an alternative to gender-based demographics; psychographics groups people according to set psychological profiles instead of their sex or gender. Women interested in breaking into the industry were directed to gamasutra.com, the women in games international website and the SMU guildhall.
The first Penny Arcade Panel of PAX 2006 started off with a PAX tradition: a marriage proposal. Self-proclaimed gamer-geek Sean Baker asked the beautiful-but-understandably-nervous Caroline Stevens onto the stage where he dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him. The answer was yes, much to the glee of the whooping crowd. After Sean and Caroline’s heartwarming display, Mike and Jerry took the stage to deliver the most exciting news of the entire day: THERE WILL BE A PENNY ARCADE VIDEOGAME! Hailed as a combination of Gabe, Tycho and Lovecraft, On The Rain-Slicked Precepice of Darkness could be the next videogame blockbuster of our generation! The rest of the Panel was Q&A from the crowd, which does not lend itself well to regurgitation by a journalist. However, Mike and Jerry also mentioned that they intend to start a $10,000 scholarship to help gamers go to college for game-related degrees. Information on the game and the scholarship fund will be posted on the website within the week. It was mentioned that a tag/search function may be added to the Penny Arcade archive. In reference to the Jack Thompson affair, Mike was quoted as saying: “I’m willing to throw that kind of money around ($10,000)…in spite…” When asked if the Penny Arcade comic would ever use full-motion animation, the response was a quick “No,” followed by Jerry saying “Full-motion sounds…so…sensual…” Such panels are chock full of comic gold that cannot be done justice by my meager medium, and so must be experienced in the flesh. You have been advised, dear reader!
The next panel of the day covered “The Dominance of Online Gaming.” Panelists included: David Reid (Gametap), Brian (Microsoft) and Jim (Turbine Marketing). Many intriguing topics were covered, from the portable market and the demise of the PSP, to appeasing hardcore gaming communities. Brian suggested that it was now feasible to begin incorporating the hardware and software modding community into console gaming. It is even foreseeable to have cross-platform games: “I remember Fable,” said David. “Playing at 2:00 am, I have a job and a family, it was the only time I had. So there I was playing the concentration card game to get money for some new armor. Then I had an epiphany: why couldn’t I just do this little part of the game on a cell phone?”
Payment systems and strengthening online communities were also discussed. “Uru Onlne died for the company early on,” said David. “It was this hardcore collective community of worldbuilders that kept it alive in other arenas.” These kinds of intimately involved gamers now allow for new types of online games to be developed. Whereas a few years ago MMOs needed to be something to everyone, now they can be tailored to the tastes of individual gamer clique.
Flying Labs Software hosted a Pirate Party in the tabletop gaming table area, displaying their new MMO “The Pirates Of The Burning Seas.” The game itself, which was impressive to begin with, has been improved upon tenfold. There are more ships, 1,000+ missions, features, and combat depth. Although Pirates itself was worthy of worshipping prone, the party itself was something of a flop. There was not enough space for 1/10th of the people who wanted to attend, the alcohol area and the game area were crammed into the same spot and there wasn’t nearly enough food. This is an example of just how popular the Penny ARcade expo is – more people than expected, and things are full to bursting at the seams.
PAX’s final hours rested inside the main stage, where TheVideoGamePianist, Optimus Rhyme and The NESkimos performed an all-geek-friendly repertoire (introduced by none other that videogame music god Tommy Tallarico!). TheVideoGamePianist has only become faster, more accurate and more composed in the intervening year, making him easily one of the best solo classical musicians on the West coast. Playing medleys of old Nintendo and Japanese RPG favorites, TheVideoGamePianist was easily the highlight show of the evening. Optimus Rhyme played their set, blasting the crowd with base and (mostly) nerdcore rhymes, but by the time the NESkimos took the stage, con-goers were already sitting and passing out.
The NESkimos appealed to the flagging audience’s sense of honor and rock n’ roll, begging them to stand up and rock out hard. Their energetic interpretation of classic videogame music brought out the last bits of energy from the crowd, compelling them to dance despite the exhaustion. The NESkimos saved Friday’s concert, making an honorable last stand for videogame rock and roll.
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Tags: Penny Arcade Expo
Posted by Peter Lytle on Aug 31st, 2006 and is filed under Features, Tech Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
