PAX Prime, 2012 Synopsis

Eh, for some reason I feel it necessary to write down my thoughts on PAX. Ignore as you will. Mostly, I just don't want to go through the hassle of briefly resuscitating the Escape Characters only to put it back to death.

I've been a fan of Penny Arcade for many years now, reading the comic proper for the longest amount of time, but also enjoying the other pieces and parts they've been adding to their portfolio (PA:TS, PA:TV, PA Report, their various comic experiments, collaborations, commissions, and side projects). I like their output because it is at once irreverent but respectful of gaming and games in a way that is unique, and darkly humorous. I've grown more enamored with their various dealings as an organization because they have essentially become luminaries in the gaming community, showing the gaming industry from their perspective, and by becoming representatives of the community they were giving it a better image than it had already given itself.

For people that I talked to about going to PAX, I called this our "pilgrimage," the one trip I must make as part of my religion once in my lifetime. I said that more or less flippantly, but it had an accuracy to it: games are probably one of the few things that have been both ubiquitous and fairly personal throughout my entire life. If you ever want to watch me light up like a Christmas tree, ask me about Planescape: Torment. Or Grim Fandango. Or... well, name almost any game, but you see my point. PAX was a pilgrimage to bear witness to a gaming culture I've considered myself a part of for many, many years.

Given that, PAX was what I wanted. I wanted to see a sea of people like me, slightly overweight with ill-fitting geek t-shirts and camelback backpacks stuffed to the brim with exhibit hall swag. I wanted to see the Penny Arcade staff, whose lives I'd felt I'd been a part of (if only slightly) after watching their documentaries of their working processes and personal lives in relation to Penny Arcade. I wanted to see the over-the-top video game obsession and the industry coming together behind a collective idea shared by 70,000 like-minded people.

(taps fingers) And I saw all of that happen. And I was happy to see it. And yet, there was a weird sense of disappointment in some regards, possibly in learning from the experience, or perhaps in just seeing truths I hadn't seen before.

I found that the unique and personal relationship I'd developed with the Penny Arcade brand while reading the comic was indeed shared with the other 70,000 attendees. Shared, and divided. And there were those there that knew the same jokes and references, and yet it meant something else entirely to them than what it did to me. During the Q&A sessions angsty teens would line up not to ask questions of their idols, but gush and outpour their emotional trials and tribulations and thank Mike and Jerry (the two main guys, if you aren't familiar) for something they'd done. I was there to see Mike and Jerry. Heartless as it sounds, I couldn't care less about some dude's girlfriend leaving him and the Penny Arcade community being there for him. I was repeatedly irritated by the fanboys and fangirls yelling "We love you!" during a brief quiet moment. I wanted to hear these people say the interesting things I'd come to expect from them. Mostly I was satisfied. But only just.

I also learned that being part of a fandom means having to deal with other fans. Many, many other fans. The convention was a repeated exercise in speedwalking and 45 minute to 2 hour lines in hopes of seeing things that were important. And it wasn't that this was a surprise: many of the things I was interested in were the main events. But it was even in the smaller sections (the ones having to deal with game writing, storytelling, ethics and morality in games and those playing them, etc.) that there were still incredible numbers of people. And while the lines were manageable, and the Enforcers (security guards / volunteer convention workers / entertainers) were efficient and respectful, every line I stood in was time that I had to spend at the expense of something else potentially interesting. If a panel or an event was also a waste of time, I'd essentially wasted half a day for it.

Another missing element was the purported "community," or the community I thought I'd sensed in the descriptions surrounding PAX and Penny Arcade. Indeed: if everyone speaks the same language, and is interested in the same things, wouldn't a crowd of 2,000 people waiting in line be a large, socially active entity? Sadly, not in our experience. Many of the people we saw, while very similar, weren't particularly interested in talking. Most times I'd glance back to see a crowd of downward looking heads, busy on cell phones, Nintendo DSes, or some other wonderfully obscure handheld electronics. Groups of friends and other cliques managed to talk to each other, certainly, but more often than not excluded the ones around them. It may be that this makes sense for a crowd of people who are overwhelmingly introverted, but it's my opinion that conversation is two parts conversational topics, one part conversational skill. At the very least, it would have been an easy conversation. If I had to guess, it was more the case of the villain in the movie "The Incredibles," when he said "When everyone's super, no one will be." Being and weird and different my whole life, it was strange to have that which I held so close to my identity become so incredibly indistinct. I was guilty of playing with my phone as well.

There is also that, while very subtle, I became aware of the business portion of the Penny Arcade brand. While not overt, it was apparent that much of the convention was geared towards the aggressive marketing of the exhibiting vendors (and even Penny Arcade themselves). The expo hall was designed to trap people in vendor areas, vendor booths, keep them in line for as long as possible, and keep people from attending other booths. It was the loud, obnoxious part of gaming that I hate to be a party to, but there were again so many people that I didn't even feel like I could reasonably visit the indie game developers. I didn't have the time or patience to see or play the games I wanted. I managed to catch the main developer of Zeboyd Games, the developer of the third Penny Arcade game, and ask him some technical questions about C# optimization. The man looked so, so tired.

(scratches head) My gaming habits have changed drastically in the last year, even the last few months. I've only briefly played a number of short, almost casual games this summer (given my biking, working, and generally busy schedule of summer activities), but even before that I hadn't turned on my game consoles for months at a time. I'm having to focus on other portions of my life, and at the same time recognize that some of my past habits, even past identities, are at cross purposes with my future plans. I am no longer anywhere near the lower end of the age spectrum of what is considered the gaming community. Wikipedia claims 37 years old to be the average age of gamers, which while it assures me I still have plenty of years before I'm considered "average," judging by the attendees of PAX I felt like an old man.

Overall, had a good time. I do now have a powerful need to write and create. And also, to play Dungeons and Dragons.