Misty Water-Colored Memories of PAX East

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People get sentimental about PAX. When it was over Wil Wheaton tweeted — possibly only semi-ironically — that he “needed a moment.”

But it’s true, PAX is different. Partly because it’s for fans, not the industry. Partly because it’s almost freakishly well-run. Partly because it’s animated by the spirits of Gabe and Tycho, a.k.a. Mike and Jerry, the people who do Penny Arcade. There’s a weird sense of belonging at PAX. Even I feel it — I, who call no man friend!

I’d never been to a PAX before this weekend. Now I have. Sort of — I couldn’t show up till Sunday, thereby missing all the concerts and room parties and everything that mattered. But anyway. Here are some impressions:

— It’s a big convention — 60,000 people — but it feels small. The show floor wasn’t huge, so you didn’t get lost, and the main auditorium was huge, so you didn’t get shut out of the big events. It seemed like most of the developers were saving their blockbuster announcements and previews for E3. Plus it’s smaller than E3. Or for that matter Comdex. #Iamold

— There was some bitchin’ cosplay on offer, but whole hallways fell silent when this guy walked by. Automata cosplay FTW.

— There were whole roomfuls of people playing D&D. Literally roomfuls. I thought WoW had killed pen-and-paper gaming dead. I’m so glad I was wrong. Even if 4th Edition rules are total gibberish to me.

— I was on a panel about video games journalism. Scroll down, it’s on here somewhere. Two minutes before it started there were three people in the audience, and I thought, ‘yeah, that’s about what I expected.’ Then the Enforcers opened the doors, and 200 people shoved in. Cool.

I learned a ton. The other panelists — Chris Grant (Joystiq), Susan Arendt (The Escapist), Kyle Orland (Crispy Gamer), and Gus Mastrapa (everywhere) — were really brilliant and harsh and funny. I was just glad to be there, because people don’t always think of me as a gaming writer. My two major points were:

1) if you want to get into gaming journalism, get serious about writing. Read everything, and write all the time. A lot of people know a lot about games. Not many of those people can really write.

2) Gaming criticism is still in its infancy. We need a new kind of critical language for games, that isn’t borrowed from lit crit or movie theory, but is native to the medium. It’s up to us to build it.

— At one of the Q&A sessions, someone asked Mike and Jerry to arm-wrestle. Mike won. Personally I wouldn’t have called it that way.

— There was beautiful (sorry, that’s the only adjective that fits) room full of classic arcade games. I played Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest. Strange how the mere addition of a transform-into-a-pegasus button can make a great game into a totally boring one.

— I re-met MC Frontalot. Always an important thing to do. (I call him “Damian” now, because we’re such good friends.) I also met Scott Kurtz, who does PvP. Also important.

— Speaking of Kurtz (transition!) I went to the panel on Blamimations, which Kurtz does with Kris Straub (who took the photo up top). They are funny. The panel was wall-to-wall Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman jokes, so good stuff. They also debuted the catchprase of the coming decade: “If you need me, I’ll be in stellar cartography.”

You heard it here first. From PAX East, I’m Lev Grossman.

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