Pax East & Me

[woodwardiocom]

buxom_bey and I attended PAX East this past Saturday. PAX is a gaming convention, mostly focused on video games, but with a sizable paper game presence. This one filled the Boston Convention Center, and apparently had about 60,000 attendees. For comparison, that's twenty times the size of Arisia. (Heretical thought here: Maybe Arisia should beef up its gaming track some more? Or have an outreach presence at PAX?)

B. and I wanted to attend a panel on Geek Parenting, but when we found the line, it extended a hundred people past the "Line Ends Here" marker. Due to people giving up, and the enforcers cramming in a few stragglers, we came within maybe five people of getting in, but it was not to be. Instead we headed over to the tabletop gaming area, where my occasional publisher Steve Jackson Games had a presence. I introduced B. to Mister Jackson Himself, and she squee'd over his prototype gazebo dice roller. She needed to sit, and so sat down for a game of Munchkin Zombies, while I toured the expo halls. Lots of lines, lots of video screens showing people shooting things. I caught a quick glimpse of actual gameplay for Portal 2, which continues to look awesome. I bought some dice. I wandered back to Bey, and, as she was still playing, I sat down for a game of Revolution, which is fun, but maybe not $40 worth of fun. Then B. and I got some food, I showed her the high-quality gaming tables at the Geek Chic booth (which she admitted were cool and tempting), we briefly checked out the rest of the (very impressive) facility, and then we headed home to collapse.

The Globe has a photo gallery from the event, which is actually balanced. They did not go the cheap route of only showing the most embarrassing fans, but actually included a lot of attractive people in costumes that clearly took a lot of time and effort. Good for them.

Comments

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

As a geek who doesn't game (NOW who's the heretic? :P ) I kind of hope that Arisia wouldn't beef up their gaming without also beefing up their other tracks as well. Particularly the film, TV, and literature stuff. And I kind of like the fact that it's nowhere near 60K people.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

It's true that I shouldn't measure Arisia's success just in terms of raw numbers.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

*nods*

More people want to go to things that are awesome, definitely, but there BEING more people doesn't necessarily raise the awesome level all by itself. If it gets better, the numbers will go up, but more important, it will be better. :)

[thespian.livejournal.com]

true, but Arisia's gaming efforts are very limited; it's really 'here's a room you can game in'. A couple years we haven't offered that, or we've offered it in places that people can't find it, half a mile away from the rest of the con. It could at least be brought up to match the other tracks in terms of quality and offerings.

[crazybone.livejournal.com]

half a mile away from the rest of the con.

Uh, what year was that? I've been there for the "stuck in closet" years but I've been to every Arisia and don't remember one where Gaming was in a separate hotel.

[totient]

in the late 90s we put it in what later became the Bonfire restaurant.

edited to use a more appropriate userpic

[thespian.livejournal.com]

Geek Chic had added a coffee table this year with foam inserts for controllers and their usual recessed top that I fell hard in love with. It's not on their site yet, sadly. But it was really lovely.

[dancer.livejournal.com]

I want Arisia to be successful (and more successful too), but I think part of its appeal for me is that it is not one of those crazy huge 'trade-show' type conventions.

Brian missed you guys by a day! He trooped on Sunday. I hope you were able to find some good Star Wars folks to harrass (if you wanted). :)

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

I noticed some 'Troopers and a Vader doing their thing at the Star Wars MMORPG booth, and idly wondered if they were local 501st.

[dancer.livejournal.com]

Yes, Bioware worked with LFL to have troopers at their booth over the weekend. They gave our members free passes, water and snacks and offered to reimburse for food. As a thank you, they made a sizeable donation to the Penny Arcade Charity http://www.childsplaycharity.org/ (we are still waiting for the final number, but they were going to donate a certain amount of money per trooper that trooped).

[pale-chartreuse.livejournal.com]

I have gone to volunteer run conventions for several decades now (Arisia, Boskone, Lunacon), and I have a friend who only goes to corporate run conventions (PAX, Star Trek, etc). We always have really strange conversations about fandom, like speaking the same language but in two very different dialects.

[(Anonymous)]

A few years ago, I attended a SMOFcon (secret masters of fandom) where most large fan con organizers attended to discuss the running of conventions. Boskone, Arisia, and I-Con organizers were there. They all mentioned wanting to incorporate more gaming into their cons. The problem is, they don't "get" gamers and don't have the resources needed to culivate a proper gaming scene. I say this not to be disrespectful but as one of the organizers of NE's largest tabletop gaming convention. It's like speaking to someone from England. You speak the same language but somethings are different :)

Truth be told, in my opinion, none of us have the capacity to make anything on the scale of PAX alone. For some reason in the New England area, we are fractured. If Boskone, Arisia, TotalCon, and maybe AnimeBoston combined, each handling it's own special area of expertise, (after all we are only weeks away from each other) we could easily become the next mega con like DragonCon and make Boston the winter destination. Also...don't fully buy into the 60k mark, they count turnstyle...meaning one person with one three day badge = three attendees so the numbers, while impressive, are not that big. I know, I've been to GenCon where 30k people is 30k people and it far larger than PAX. I've been to both.

I worry about what the future will hold for smaller cons as PAX continues to grow. I don't blame them for coming in our area at this time frame, even I noticed the lack of a national presence in this area and it's perfectly timed away from the summer trade shows. It was smart. I would have loved to do it myself but I don't have the financial backing that they do.

[crazybone.livejournal.com]

but as one of the organizers of NE's largest tabletop gaming convention.

Is that TotalCon you're talking about?

Also, those attending SMOFCon are a small percentage of the people that put on the cons you mentioned. They may not "get" gaming but they often put people in charge that do.

Also PAX, being a for-profit con with corporate sponsorships, has access to resources several degrees of magnitude greater that something like Arisia or Boskone. Usually when multiple con committees combine they join to host a worldcon, which sometimes comes close to the 10,000 mark but not recently. In addition, I think PAX has something that SF cons don't have. Mainstream appeal. In the past 20-30 years there has been a slow de-stigmatizing of playing video games. When professional athletes own up to playing MMOs on late-night talk shows, you've crossed a barrier there.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, it is TotalCon :) And I know some of the people associated with running gaming at Boskone, Arisia,etc. Most state the same thing: Their needs are not met from con chairs because it isn't top priority. There is nothing wrong with that, they know their fan base and offer what keeps the attendees happy. It's one thing to offer gaming as a side note for fans. It is a far different thing to offer gaming to attract gamers if you want to increase your attendance.

As for PAX, I think you are right on the money! They do have resources far greater than the rest of us. If we(any local volunteer run convention) had the same numbers, we could attract the same sponsorships. That isn't too hard to get.

I think you are also right about the mainstream appeal. I know several people that complain that PAX came in with big guns and just plopped themselves on "our" turf without any respect or consideration and without offering anything in return. I disagree. I like that they are mainstream and that most of it's tabletop gaming is open gaming and fast play. I think it is a good way to develop some cross over with younger generations. It's also cool to have something this big in our area. It's totally new and exciting. However, I stand by my assertion that if local cons pooled their resources, we could do the same thing. We have solid fan bases and if they all came together at one time in one place: WOW!

Every show has it's own flavor. I freely admit that hardcore fan cons aren't my thing. However I do like the bigger cons that have quality gaming, cosplay, panels, etc. I don't consider PAX to be quality gaming except for the electronic stuff. GenCon is quality gaming but that is their main focus. PAX is good for exhibitors and gaming with the company reps and seeing some new product but that was new this year, less so last year :)

If the SF cons want to add gaming, they need time, space, money, and more importantly: talent to get it up and running. You need a boardgame fan for board games, rpg fan for role-playing, etc...each genre of gaming comes with it's own special requirements. There are even sub-groups within each genre (wargamers vs. historical mini's, RPGA vs. Pathfinder vs. Call of Cthulhu, Euro's vs. American games, and so on) then you need to find GameMaster, etc. That's why open gaming is so heavily favored at PAX. None of the fuss but small (relatively speaking) numbers of hard core gamers and they are big enough to keep the areas separate (very very important!!).

In the end, I think Arisia should do some outreach work at PAX. They might find some new members there that have never heard of it before. Money spent on promotions is never wasted. Gaming, on the other hand, would require a serious effort.

Re: Arisia

[omly.livejournal.com]

Are you thinking more of the programming items for gaming or the offerings of the gaming room? I know that pretty much all the content is suggestion driven, so submitting specific item ideas tends to be really helpful for people running those departments.

Re: Arisia

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Are you thinking more of the programming items for gaming or the offerings of the gaming room?

A little of both. I'm also broadly referring to how there's an occasional perceived anti-gaming sentiment among the Powers That Be of Arisia.

[evila.livejournal.com]

Wow weird that I did not see you. The Warmachine tourney was right next to SK Games booth.