Well, that was insane.
I just came out of the ridiculous Penny Arcade Expo, better known as PAX, being held at the Convention Center in downtown Seattle.
It’s my first PAX experience, and this is all I have to say: Wow.
For those who don’t know what PAX is, it’s basically gamer’s paradise. More than 70,000 gaming fans come together to play anything from Super Mario on NES to Watch Dogs for Xbox One, hear from industry leaders on various panels and compete in tournaments.
Walking around the exhibition floor, I felt like I was in a big new crowded city, my head cranked up and moving back and forth in awe of all the huge booths for each gaming company. I’m not exactly a hardcore gamer, but still found this extremely cool.
My favorite part had to be the Classic Arcade and Classic Console rooms, where the clicks and clacks of pinball machines filled the air, along with the the rapid button-pushing of old-school arcade games like Ms. Pac Man and Street Fighter. There were also consoles like Atari, Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 that you could game on — awesome!
Most of all, there’s just a really cool sense of community at these types of events — everyone here, in one way or another, shares a passion for gaming. It’s pretty special.
You really need to come check PAX out at least once if you are even mildly interested in this subject. Unfortunately, if you don’t have tickets yet, you’re out of luck as this year’s event sold out weeks ago. However, there were scalpers outside the expo selling tickets, which speaks to the demand of this thing.
Check out photos from today below, and here is some of our other coverage from PAX:
PAX: Xbox One and PS4 face off on show floor, sorta
PAX: Molyneux’s ‘Godus’ looks great — and he urges you to use it for evil
Nine years later, PAX is a global phenomenon
PHOTOS:
