The Penny Arcade Expo '08 takes place in the (historic?) downtown convention center in Seattle. The convention center is enormous; aside from the four floors with multiple event theaters, there's a large outdoor area where people can eat and hang out. The building was at all times today packed to the brim with people. It's shoulder-to-shoulder in virtually every room. My plane didn't get in until 2 p.m., at which point I took the airport shuttle downtown and wandered around until I found my hotel. Then, it was off to the Expo!
Attendees get a lanyard for their badge and a "swag bag" which really means "bag filled with promotional material from different companies." There's a demo for the Penny Arcade PC game in there, but my laptop can't run it. Anyway, it was time to fill that swag bag up, so I headed to the expo center, where dozens of companies had booths and (I expected) free swag. As I quickly discovered, the swag was not that great. Posters, promotional cards, a little comic book thing for Fallout 3. I was expecting demos, pens, figurines, etc.! I can't drag a dozen posters back to Anchorage! The booths were not well organized, and hallways between booths were tight. This resulted in a good deal of crowding.
The expo center housed not just companies showing off their games (more on that in a minute), but also companies trying to sell things. Wizards of the Coast was there, selling $5 and $6 booster packs, as was some Japanese used-game store ("Pink Godzilla?"). There was a lot of Penny Arcade-related stuff, including a booth devoted to Pac-Man merch. I didn't get to play any of the games I wanted to try due to the prohibitively long lines. Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour, The Conduit, and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia are all on my to-do list tomorrow.
The highlight of the night was attending a Q&A session with Gabe & Tycho. They're both very humble, funny, and lighthearted. And for those who don't know, they look NOTHING like their avatars. I went up to the microphone and asked Gabe why he didn't contribute to the commentaries for the book collections, wondering specifically about the evolution of his art style. I also gave him a picture from my own old webcomic that he seemed to like. The Q&A session didn't last too long, but it was very enjoyable.
After that, I wandered around some more and came back to the hotel. I was beat, and my feet and knees were killing me. Tomorrow I'm going to try and get some game time in both at the expo center and with some of my fellow gamers, perhaps in one of the many handheld lounges in the building, or the classic gaming room. I'd also like to attend some of the speaking panels, although none of them are REAL high on my to-do list. The majority of the talks are aimed at those who want to break into the industry.
If any of you readers are attending PAX tomorrow, I'll be at the Nintendo booth around noon, trying to play Castlevania and The Conduit. I'd love to play some Space Invaders Extreme, Mario Kart DS (no snaking!), Pokemon DS, or Lumines 2 with you!
