Penny Arcade Expo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Penny Arcade Expo
PAX logo
Status	Active
Genre	Gaming
Venue	WSCTC
Location	Washington
Country	United States
First held	2004
Organizer	Penny Arcade
Official website

The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is an annual gamer festival held in Washington state, USA. PAX was created by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the Penny Arcade webcomic, because they wanted to attend a show that gave equal attention to console gamers, computer gamers, and tabletop gamers. No such show existed, so PAX was born.

Created in 2004, PAX has nearly doubled in size each successive year and has been hailed as a weekend-long celebration of gamer culture. Defining characteristics include an insider keynote speech, game-inspired concerts, panels on game industry topics, exhibitor booths, after-hours parties, tournaments, and freeplay areas.

1 PAX 2004
2 PAX 2005
3 PAX 2006
4 PAX 2007
5 PAX 2008
6 External links

[edit] PAX 2004

PAX attendees crowding the lobby of Bellevue's Meydenbauer Center

On April 12, 2004, the authors of Penny Arcade announced PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo. PAX 2004 was a two-day event held in Bellevue, Washington from August 28 to August 29, 2004, which they hoped would turn into an annual event. Several exhibitors, including Microsoft and Ubisoft, showcased videos and playable demos of their upcoming games at PAX 2004. Microsoft allowed attendees to experience a multiplayer level of Halo 2 months before it hit stores in addition to a number of other Xbox games, while Ubisoft showed Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Ghost Recon 2 and two other titles.

Included amongst the events of the first PAX were live musical performances by bands including The Minibosses, panels featuring Penny Arcade creators Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins as well as others in the video game industry, and the Omegathon, a contest where twenty contestants played a series of games for a chance at winning an excessively large video game collection worth in excess of $25,000.

The contestants competed in a tabletop dice game, called Diceland, Halo (Xbox), Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GameCube), Dance Dance Revolution, Doom (PC) and the original home version of Pong. Sean Celaya defeated Kevin Potter in the final round to take home the ultimate prize becoming the PAX 2004 Omegathon champion.

In an interesting turn of fate, precisely 1337 people pre-registered, to which Holkins mused, "though I ordinarily shun leet-speak that number clearly implies the blessing of gaming deities."[1] All told, about 3,300 people attended the event.

[edit] PAX 2005

PAX 2005 took place from August 26 to August 28, 2005 at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Washington, where the first PAX was held. PAX 2005, unlike its predecessor, occupied the entire center, effectively doubling the usable floor space. Sponsors included Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft and NCsoft, among others.

Musical guests included the rock groups The Minibosses and The Neskimos, self-professed "professional hardcore gangster rapper" mc chris, pianists Martin Leung and Connie Lin, nerdcore hiphopper MC Frontalot, and rap/funk group Optimus Rhyme, who performed live in two separate concerts in a massive theater.

Many favourite events from PAX 2004 such as Pitch Your Game Idea, Red vs. Blue, a screening of the 1989 film 'The Wizard', and Penny Arcade Q&A made encore appearances. New events included Beat The Pros, and industry panels on online gaming, the videogame marketing process, and on controversy in the industry.

Omegathon II was an even more elaborate affair than its predecessor. Krahulik said on February 9, 2005 on penny-arcade.com that, "[At PAX 2005] we will deliver an even bigger prize to the winner of the Omegathon." On June 29, 2005 [2], it was revealed that prize would be the complete NES video game library, being valued at least $10,099.99. The prize was locked in a large cage in the exhibition room and also included two Star Wars-themed Alienware gaming PCs, one of which would go to the winner and the other to the runner-up. Contestants competed in the tabletop game Diceland, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Katamari Damacy, Karaoke Revolution, Quake, and the Atari 2600 game Combat. In a thrilling four-round match, Luke "Coreside" Armstrong defeated Will "LeRoy" Garroutte by a single point to win the best-of-three series 2-1-1 and take home the grand prize. In total, more than 9,000 gamers attended PAX 2005, almost triple the previous year's attendance.

In response to Hurricane Katrina Penny Arcade auctioned off the original pencil sketch of the PAX 2005 program cover on eBay with 100% of the profit to be given to the American Red Cross. It was sold to Christian Boggs for the final price of $8,700. Mr. Boggs also placed the winning bid of $20000 on an auction to appear in a Penny Arcade comic strip at the 2005 Child's Play Charity Dinner. [3] [4]

[edit] PAX 2006

PAX 2006 was held from August 25 to August 27, 2006. The Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue was again used as the venue, although the Tabletop Gaming area was moved offsite to the ballrooms at the nearby Red Lion hotel. Exhibit space at PAX 06 completely sold out in less than three months, with exhibitors including Nintendo, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Turbine Inc, Technomancer Press, NCSoft, Rooster Teeth Productions, Creative Labs, Wizards of the Coast, and nVidia. Because they applied one month before PAX 2006, Sony was unable to attend, as exhibitor space was also sold out. According to Gabe, there were 19,323 attendees[5].

PAX 2006 Exhibitor Hall

Highlights:

Returning Omeganaut Will "LeRoy" Garroutte defeated David "Davertron" Davis in the final round of the Omegathon: head to head Tetris. LeRoy took away a brand new Scion car fully loaded with custom wheels, custom sound, LCD tv, Xbox 360 Premium, wireless controllers, and more. Davertron left with an Xbox 360 Premium and $500 Best Buy gift card, and will return as an Omeganaut in 2007.
Holkins and PA business manager Robert Khoo led the way into Omegathon Round 5, Guitar Hero II. After blistering through "Trippin on a Hole In a Paper Heart" on expert, Holkins smashed the guitar on stage.[6]
Krahulik and Holkins announced the first ever Penny Arcade video game. Titled "On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One", (which has since been released) and that the game would feature PA characters in episodic adventures. Details were few; when asked what the game was about, Holkins replied "Gabe. Tycho. And Cthulhu."[7]
Krahulik and Holkins also announced a Penny Arcade annual scholarship, wherein one applicant with an intention to work in the game industry will be awarded $10,000 toward tuition expenses.[8]
Several game companies ran large prize tournaments and giveaways, including ArenaNet ($10,000 prize tourney), TableStar ($2,500 prize tourney), and Nvidia (several thousand dollars' worth of video cards).
Thousands of PAX attendees spontaneously created a game/minor deity called "Ball".[9]

[edit] PAX 2007

It has been suggested that Penny Arcade Expo 2007 be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

The fourth annual iteration of Penny Arcade Expo was held on August 24, 25, and 26, 2007. According to Robert Khoo, Penny Arcade's Director of Business Development, PAX 2007 occupied 130,000 square feet of the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, more than doubling the space of PAX 2006. 37,000 attended over the three-day convention, nearly doubling the previous year's attendance.

[edit] PAX 2008

On October 26, 2007, Penny-Arcade Inc. announced PAX 2008. PAX '08 will be held again in the Washington Convention and Trade Center, and will cover the weekend of August 29-31, the last weekend in August. ^[1]