PAX Impressions and some Photos
So I got back from the Penny Aracde Expo and I had a pretty good time even though I was there for a short period of time. One thing is for sure I hate the Meydenbauer Center. The multiple floor layout just isn’t very fun to navigate around especially when you have hundreds of gamers sitting on the floor playing the Mario Kart on DS against each other. Just a pain. But now to the good things, Penny Arcade brings some really great people from the industry to talk to the fans and give some insight and have fun with the fans. This is really nice compared to E3 where you just can’t get anything done, GDC where you want to impress, and Gamefest/Xfest/DevStation which is just different them all of them. It is nice to let the guard down, and have some fun which PAX is a great place for that to happen.
I was only able to attend one panel today, which was Forums, Blogs and Fanbois: The Role of Community and PR in the Game Industry, which had Frankie from Bungie, Jenny from ArenaNet, Chris from Foundation 9/Backbone on the panel and moderated by my pal Brian. It was an excellent session with some great opinions on how important it is in having communication with your fans of any level, especially the hardcore fans. There were some excellent questions in the planned questions, but some of the questions during open Q&A were pretty good as well, many asking how a smaller site get content without having hits. Jen had a great answer in that it comes down to passion for doing it and building that trust with fans out there, as well as there is always things to talk about and content all around. I wish I was on the panel, I would have responded that the 1up Yours podcast really doesn’t break any scoops that the main site hasn’t already reported on, it is just a repeat of what the main site has already talked about. So content is plentiful online.
I really enjoyed the talk and wish I could spend hours talking with the panel on how they feel having a strong community can change the outlook and popularity of a game long term.
I took some photos, there are a couple of Frankie, the entire panel, Brian, a pirate, and some girls who had some strong feelings for Frankie.
So I picked up Dead Rising for the Xbox 360 a couple days ago and it is a blast. Just going around and killing zombies with all types of crazy weapons and hearing all the stupid situations that the various characters get in too. It is great fun. Some of the best weapons include a shower head which sticks in the head of a zombie and rains blood on them, as well as a soccer ball which his zombies in the head and bounces around. Very fun to just run around a mall and pick up random stuff and bake pizzas in the food court. It is probably one of the best games for the Xbox 360 right now and I would recommend it to anyone who has a Xbox 360.
