PAX 2014 Review
PAX East 2014 was this past weekend. This was the second PAX that I have been to. Overall I think I enjoyed this year’s PAX much more than last year’s PAX. Here are some things I learned from last year/random numbered lists.
- Don’t wait in line.
As expected there was a shitton of people PAX. Because there are a shitton of people there who also like the same games you like you will probably be waiting in line for things forever. If you don’t want to wait in lines you have to find the things that will have smaller crowds and will have shorter lines. This usually means indie booths so checking out those is usually worth it. If that indie studio made that huge hit of a game don’t bother unless you still want to wait an hour cough Supergiant Games cough. What is also pretty cool is to talk to the exhibitors who are showing the games, especially developers. Talking to the developers who made the game is just as fun as playing the game. They love what they made and everybody loves talking about what they are passionate about so if you have questions about their game they usually love to answer them. I spoke to a couple developers from Supergiant Games about XNA and Monogame. They have been working closely with the Monogame to get PS4 support out for Monogame which is really cool.
- Developers are people too
Remember developers are people too. They love talking about what they’ve done but they also need breaks, time to eat, and to do the things they want to do. There are lots of exhibitors at PAX that also want to play other games at PAX. Give them space, give them time and when they can talk to you they will. After one of the talks I went to a dev was doing Q&A with some of the fans and then he just walked out after people wouldn’t leave him alone. It was clear he had to do something else but the people talking to him somehow didn’t understand that.
- Stay to the end
If you can stay till the end of something do it. If you really want to talk to one of the panelists after a panel then stay till the end and see if you can catch them in the way out. If they have the time I’m sure they would be glad to talk to you. Also at the end of PAX you may be able to get certain things or play some games because there are usually less people around. After both League talks on Saturday and Sunday I got a ton of my questions answered by RiotScruffy and Morello. They were really happy to answer questions which was really cool because they gave me a better insight into the design process at Riot. Also RiotPwyff is just as awesome in person as he is in his patch notes.
I didn’t get to play that many games this year because I didn’t wait in super long lines but I did still get to play some cool games. Transistor is really fun and I can’t wait for it to come out. Hyper Light Drifter is an interesting game and I would like to see more of it. I really wanted to play Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard’s new MOBA but the line for that was about 2 hours. I also spoke with a Twitch employee and showed him the Twitch app I’ve been working on and he said if I email him he will get me in contact with other Twitch people which is really awesome and exciting. Overall PAX this year was great and I’m looking forward to attending many more PAX events.