PAX Prime ’10: Half Left’s Round-up of Day One

As the first day of PAX Prime 2010 draws to a close on this gorgeous Friday afternoon, the nerds start to leave gaming geek mecca and scurry back to their dens. They untuck their t-shirts from their pants, empty their bum bags and fanny packs of swag and get out of those sweaty socks and sandals. I sit here on the bed of my hotel, from which I can see a strip club called ‘Little Darlings’ and the FareStart restaurant.

This is a round-up of my day thus far enjoying what one of the largest gaming events of the year has to offer. I’ve been absorbing the videogame culture, bumping into ‘e-celebrities’ and learning about the industry from educated professionals hosting panels.

I awoke at about 8am, still off-balance and covered in marker pen and Mexican chocolate from the drinking session the night before. It can only be described as ‘heroic’ to find that I was in the bed of a hotel room that was not my own. After spending an hour and a half looking for my phone, only to find it was in my back pocket, and noticing that my wallet had merely been pilfered from me in my sleep, not stolen, I set about heading towards my own hotel.

Having been in the city for two days prior to the start of PAX the steady increase of nerds has been very observable. Beyond a Scott Pilgrim shirt on the plane from Texas, or wherever I flew from, I’d seen none for a while. Today you can’t walk a single block without seeing a Fruit Fucker or Mega 64 shirt adorning a clinically obese chestline.

After reaching my hotel and reacquainting myself with sobriety and freshness, I emptied out a backpack to make room for swag, threw in my super-chic pink and white polka-dot notepad and was off to the convention centre; off to rejoin the ocean of nerds once more.

The show floor, lacking in swag and odour

I had a short while before my first of two panels of the day so did a quick circuit of the show floor to take in the atmosphere. Almost instantly I realised that the atmosphere was not as toxic as it seemed last year. Perhaps the ConSARS epidemic of ‘09 thinned out the herd enough to remove some of the more nasally offensive.

Another rather jarring difference is that the exhibitors are being a lot tighter in terms of swag and marketing materials this year. I watched as a booth pretty much unloaded its entire day’s worth of shirts in one go onto the rabble that happened to be around them at the time. No tables full of Rockstar Grant Theft Auto stickers this year, nor even is there a man with a depressed look on his face handing out arm-fulls of Hello Kitty Online demo discs.

One thing that PAX has this year that I’m certain I remember reading about somewhere is booth-babes. I wonder about ‘partial nudity’ and how it applies to a girl in a skin-tight bodysuit that leaves little to the imagination. But then I stop wondering about that because dirty thoughts are naughty!

The queues for booths this year also seem longer. This is likely due to the fact that there’s no super-high profile exhibitors to attract all the line fans, thus leaving better general spread throughout the whole show. Though saying that, it was revealed today that everyone’s favourite one liner-spewing Duke is back. Nothing can kill Duke Nukem, evidently. He has officially run out of gum.

After walking the floor and having a go on some kiosks and booths for various games (not particularly ‘important’ ones) I walked down the road to the Sheraton Hotel’s function hall for my first panel.

Panel time

Booms, Headshots, and Scathing Comments: The Magical World of Web Video covered entertainment web video in the online environment. The panellists included some well known names from the web serious world including Alex Albrecht of The Totally Rad Show and Diggnation, Kim Evey of The Guild, and Garrett Hunter who is an important part of Mega64. I would have found these names more impressive if I actually watched any of these series, but regardless their discussions of how they themselves got into the businesses they’re currently in was very interesting indeed. The technological and human elements of video on the web were also discussed, and hearing them talk about the trials and tribulations of making a good web video series made a good hour long panel.

Later on that day I attend a panel titled ‘Movin’ on Up: How to Make It (Or Not) in Videogames Journalism’ and found it most entertaining and interesting. The panel was hosted by some professionals within the industry who spend the entire hour answering questions from the audience. Most questions covered certain tropes of the trade, such as how a smaller blog can maintain PR assets and still be critical of games, or how unpaid hobbyists can take the next step to try and turn their writing into a career.

Most of them agreed that the majority of panellists at PAX won’t have a typical story of how they got into their jobs and that more often than not a good amount of hustle is required for those kinds of positions. A very articulate man stood to ask a question and begun with a small speech on his own experiences, winning me over when he looked about the room and said “If anyone here thinks they are or want to be a games writer, and you aren’t tweeting this or don’t have a notepad out right now, you are doing it wrong”. I was most smug after that and the panellists jokingly said all those with notepads out were smiling and nodding at each other from around the room.

Doubtless I will delve into these panels in much more detail on the next NZCast and talk about the more enjoyable and interesting ones, so keep an eye out for the show next week.

PAX is off to a wonderful start and I intend to make the most of this brilliant city, with its spacey needles, over the next few days. Check back tomorrow for the second round-up post!

More details of the panels and panellists can be found here on the Penny Arcade Expo website.

Click to read Day 2