penny-arcade-expo-2008 posts

While official attendance figures for the just completed first annual PAX East event have not yet been released, it's clear that the Boston-based gaming event had a ton of folks come out to the Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center. Too many, in fact, as some people complained of overcrowding at that location.

The Boston.com web site reports that for the 2011 and 2012 edition of PAX East, the event will be held at the much bigger Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.Curt Schilling, the former Boston Red Sox pitcher and now head of the game developer 38 Studios, is quoted as saying, "I think the city is a little bit taken aback by how big this is. I don't think they were expecting this."

[Via Blue's News]

Penny Arcade Expo still has one more day to go for its 2008 installment but our Big Download team member Kyle Horner is on the scene to make sure our audience gets a little taste of what's going on at the massive show this weekend. He has posted up a ton of pictures from PAX 2008.

Check out people playing Starcraft II. Gaze at the terrific Fallout 3 display. Be amazed at the weird PC case mods. Laugh out loud at the Brawndo ad ("It's got electrolytes"). Make fun of the usual Darth Vader-Stormtroopers in the crowd. Overall, be amazed that this show continued to grow and grow. Look for more from our Big Download team at PAX today and in the days ahead.

Penny Arcade Expo is now well underway in Seattle and the two men who came up with the annual gaming fan event, Mike "Gabe" Krahulik and Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, wasted no time in an interview with Gamespot taking shots at the upcoming E For All Expo scheduled for LA on October 3-5. Big Download broke the news earlier this week that E For All organizers have had issues getting most major game publishers to exhibit at the event, while PAX 2008 is featuring over 20 major game publishers along with a large number of independent developers.

Krahulik, after slamming E For All's design choices for wallpapers, stated, "It's not even that we're so awesome; it's that everyone else is an idiot. They don't get it. It's not hard. If you play games and you love games, it's not hard to do this. But when you look at something like that, you just think, "How can I take any pride in winning?" They're just stupid. They don't know what they're doing."

Keep the women and children safe; Big Download has landed in Seattle and will be attending the fifth annual Penny Arcade Expo this weekend. This event looks to be the biggest yet; in an article over at Wired's game site, organizers are already saying they have had 42,000 people pre-register for PAX 2008; that's several thousand more than their entire attendance for PAX 2007. The event will have double the exhibit hall space and 40 percent more space overall to handle the larger crowd.

Big Download team members will be covering the event, taking photos, and checking out all of the PC game related exhibits. It promises to be the best PAX yet and that's saying something.

If you are heading up to Seattle to attend the 2008 edition of Penny Arcade Expo and have a few dollars that you don't have any plans on spending, you might want to check out this special limited editon version of the DeathAdder PC gaming mouse from Razer. Only 400 of these will be made and they will be sold only at PAX starting tomorrow at the Razer booth for $60. As you can see from the picture it will have the PAX 2008 logo.

Razer will also be holding a mod contest at their booth during PAX, teaming up with Modders-Inc.. According to their press release, "They were given the SilverStone TJ10 ESA case, the Razer Lachesis, the Razer Lycosa, the Razer Piranha and the Razer Destructor to mod, with the finished mod being showcased at the Razer booth. Attendees will be able to vote for their favorite out of three at the Razer booth and those who voted for the winning case will have a chance to win the case. Attendees can also vote for their best modder at www.razerzone.com.

Penny Arcade is no longer just a web comic strip about gaming. It has evolved into having those strips collected into books, launching a hugely successful children's hospital charity called Child's Play and the basis for a new episodic series of games called Penny Arcade Adventures. Perhaps the biggest part of their empire is the one that begins in Seattle on Friday; the fifth edition of the Penny Arcade Expo.

The Seattle Times has posted up a new look on Penny Arcade on the eve of PAX 2008, telling the story of how two buddies, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, created the web strip, survived the first few rough years and then met Robert Khoo, a University of Washington business graduate who took over the money end of Penny Arcade and helped Krahulik and Holkins become the massive success they are today. Penny Arcade Expo first started as a way for fans to meet the two creators; in five short years it has exploded into the single biggest consumer video game event in North America. Yet Krahulik and Holkins still work mostly on the strip while Khoo handles the numbers.Sounds like a good deal to us.

When Bioware finally announced more details on their long awaited fantasy RPG Dragon Age: Origins they also announced that the game would come with a full toolset for folks who wanted to make their own levels and content for the game. Now the first newsletter for those future world builders has been released with more info on what the toolkit will have.

The toolkit will allow folks to make their own full single player adventures with a script editor available to change creature AI and combat for making "detailed action sequences full of heart-pounding party-based tactical combat." If you happen to be going to Penny Arcade Expo at the end of the month you can attend a special presentation where Bioware team members will give a live demo showing off the features of the Dragon Age: Origins toolkit.

It started in 2004 simply as a way for fans of the popular web based comic strip Penny Arcade to get together, talk about and play games and have fun. In 2008, the Penny Arcade Expo has grown by leaps and bounds and is now the largest single gathering of people for a video/PC gaming event in the US. Organizers have predicted that 45,000 people will attend PAX 2008 in downtown Seattle from August 29-31 and considering that pre-registrations for the event have already exceeded the total attendance of 37,000 for PAX 2007 that 45,000 figure might turn out to be conservative.

So why has Penny Arcade Expo grown so much in both attendance and importance in so short of time? Big Download got a chance to chat with Penny Arcade's business head Robert Khoo to find out more and get a little more info on the just announced plans to host an east coast PAX event in 2010.

The Penny Arcade Expo had a massive expansion in 2007 as the consumer game show moved from Kirkland, Washington to the big convention center in nearby Seattle. Attendance swelled from 18,000 to over 37,000 and pretty much humbled the heavily hyped and more commercial E For All Expo which launched in 2007 in LA with a disappointing 18,000 attendees.

Now Gamespot is reporting that several weeks before the 2008 PAX begins on August 29, pre-registration for the show has already exceeded the total amount of attendees for PAX 2007. PAX organizers have already predicted that 45,000 people will show up for the latest installment and that number may turn out to be conservative. And as we reported last week, PAX will launch an east coast version of the show sometime in 2010 (most likely in the spring)

With E3 now an invite online event, the largest video/PC game oriented event in the US is the Penny Arcade Expo. The organizers of PAX 2008 have sent out a note reminding people that Thursday, July 31 is the last day people can pre-register for the event to be held in Seattle on August 29-31.

Last year, event organizers expected 30,000 people; in the end over 37,000 attendees were recorded. This year, PAX 2008 is expecting 45,000 attendees to show up at the Washington State Trade and Convention Center. Because of this increase, organizers are expecting space to be tight this year even with the addition of 120,000 square feet of overall space. With gaming tournament, exhibits from 70 companies, music concerts, panels and lots more, PAX 2008 may be more important to the average gamer than E3.