PAX West 2021 (Camp PAX) - Show Review and Thoughts of PAX and The Future

Labor Day Weekend came and went again this year. If your a gamer like me and live in the Seattle area or someone that follows gaming as a whole you undoubtedly have heard of PAX.

What is PAX? PAX is the Penny Arcade Expo. This event was established in 2004 by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. They are the authors of the Penny Arcade web comic and they wanted to attend a show exclusively for gaming. So it was born from the love of gaming and create a convention by gamers and for gamers. It started in Seattle as PAX Prime now known as PAX West. It has since grown to other cities and even countries including: Seattle, Boston, San Antonio, and Australia (Melbourne). So no matter where in the world you are there is a show you can attend! I am sure more will open in new parts of the world over time as well.

So, now that you have a brief introduction and history into PAX let's begin the review of this years event in Seattle, WA at the Washington State Convention Center in Downtown.

This year I went for only 2 days of the show. Some years I have gone 4 days and others 1-2 days. However, given the landscape of everything I only went a few days this year to play some indie games and see some great friends and build relationships I have cultivated from PAX. I also even met some new people which is always a pleasure and fun to talk to new people about games, what they do, and get to connect beyond the games and to the people themselves and what makes them unique.

So another year and another PAX has come and gone! It was both exciting and uncertain for many reasons. The first one being that the show happened at all given the uncertain nature of the world, economically, socially, and with the ongoing pandemic. So this year was very different aside from the usual suspects like wearing masks, social distancing, and limited capacity being a few caveats that make this show stand out and more uniquely contextually speaking. My experience was exciting just to have some human interaction with fans, gamers, and streamers such as myself and enjoy the love of gaming that we all share that unites us across the global and across race/gender. It brings us all to share in this joy and why we love what we do as the festival PAX has created and the culture it cultivates. This was well-needed after many of us have been stuck-in-home or unable to travel and interact with people for the past two years.

The focus point of this year was on indie gaming, tabletop, community, and card games. This has always been a staple of PAX but what was a glaring omission was the lack of AAA and large publishers and developers with the one exception being Namco Bandai. Namco has one game which was the latest entry in the "Tales Of" series. This represents a landmark in the series celebrating both the 25th Anniversary of the series as well as a change in the series from systems, conventions, and some needed changes while maintaining the series framework and what has made the series stand out.

I will have a review for this once I get my hands-on the game so I will have more on this game in the future. The presentation was the same demo we had access to on the digital store fronts such as Playstation Network so I didn't play it and didn't want to wait in line with the game coming out in less than a week.

It also represents since the invent pre-COVID a paradigm change in the way we see companies release products/services at trade shows and events. We have already seen this happening even before COVID with companies opting for digital events/live streams to release new content, trailers, and hold larger company announcements in a more cost conscious manner. This was very evident in not only the presence of these giants being MIA but in the amount of content available this year. The focus this year being more about having indie titles and sales booths for buying merch and games. This is fine as I didn't expect much in that regard with many shows going digital only or cancelling outright since the end of 2019 and going into 2020. 

So what are my thoughts overall? I enjoyed PAX for what it always represents which is the people. The people are this joyous community that create games, play games, and emanating a magic that makes PAX special. It is the environment of passion for those who love gaming! One thing that even in this year's show is that the people continue to echo kindness, sincerity, and overall good humanitarian behavior. A huge shout-out to the Enforcers, Security, and all the staff for making the experience pleasurable, safe, and enjoyable for all attendees, exhibitors, and all in audience at the show over the weekend.

My highlights are hanging out with my friends from the show and some I hadn't seen in a while, enjoying good food, and playing indie titles such as FireGirl which was a blast! Other then that I enjoy just looking at the card games, tabletop battles, playing some co-op games in the Annex Arena for Console Tourney play and checking out the game merch.

I am a bit uncertain for the future but hopeful it will return to its former glory next year! I am thinking it will be more hybrid in nature with a similar approach to this year with more of a focus on indie/tabletop/card games and seller booths. The only change I can predict and hope for is more AAA and larger publishers and developers.  I would imagine more big developers will return next year but like this year with less of a larger footprint and presence then past shows albeit in a smaller scale. I just hope long-term it will be more filled out more across the convention center instead of just one company representing that sector and presence of the industry. It is just my theory we will see when we come upon the next PAX show in 2022.

This may not have been the usual PAX as in years past. However, I think given the season that we are all in at this present moment it was the PAX we truly needed which was to gather again and be present with each other. I think even for those attending for the first time had fun. I know veterans such as myself may have felt there was missing a lot of what PAX normally has but at the same time we all knew it was gonna be different. We all came with an open-mind and had to remember to be grateful the event was able to be held once again!

I will definitely be back next year and hoping PAX will come back to its former strength and what defined the show with the return of the AAA and larger developers and publishers.

Did you attend PAX? Let's keep the discussion going in the comments below. I would love to hear your stories and what your experience was like and how it was unique and different whether you attended PAX this year for the first time or are a seasoned veteran like myself that has attended since '08/'09 with the occasional on-off year.

Until next time, Game On!

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