Well kiddies, I made it back safe and sound from the hellish but extremely fun Pax East 2013. Thankfully I haven’t come down with any illness (at least not yet) thanks to my wife and her never ending box of hand sanitizing wipes. I truly enjoyed the event and even met up with some old acquaintances and made some new ones.
* Pictures – Link *
Much love to the Indie dev’s doing their thing, you guys are truly innovating the gaming scene and I can’t wait to see all of the finished projects. The Indie scene is alive and from the showing at PAX East it is doing extremely well. Expect to see more Indie coverage here on this as well. Speaking of which I want to give a big shout out to Mighty Rabbit Studios (Saturday Morning RPG) and TistaGames ( Tempus Chronicle) who I’ll be reaching out to after GDC 2013 is over .
Sadly I didn’t get to attend all the panels that I planned on checking out and I didn’t get nearly as much free swag compared to last time. Why no goodie bags this time around PAX? I kid, it’s not about the swag, well not completely. It’s about the experience, networking with people in the scene and having a good time. All of which I did.
However, if there’s anything I can take away from this experience, it definitely has to be the following;
1. There are NO gas stations in the financial district of Boston….. NONE! Seriously what the heck is up with that?
2. After speaking to a hand full of Indie developers, I understand 100% why it is so hard to get games that were developed originally for iOS and porting them to Android or for developing new games strictly for Android. Seriously Google, you have to do something about this fragmentation, it’s killing us Android gamers.
3. The reports on the death of PC gaming have been greatly exaggerated. Just by going off the amount of games on the floor during the event, 75-80% were either PC only, PC/iOS/Android or PC/Console. That’s great for PC gamers such as myself. Hell I nearly wet myself (No, not really) watching the demos that we’re being played by souped up PC’s. From the amount of Gadgets to the shear amount of games, oh yes this is the year of the PC. Just to name a few; Hawken, Elder Scrolls Online, D&D: Neverwinter, Might and Magic X Legacy, Grid 2, Firefall.
4. Splinter Cell and WatchDogs looked amazing! Ubisoft has outdone themselves if judging from what I seen means anything. Would have liked to have some hands on with WatchDogs but I guess that will have to wait until later this year.
5. Riot’s League of Legends booth was the most loudest, most populated and the most hardiest booth to get near through-out Pax East.
6. Super Giant’s “Transistor” and Capybara / Double Fine’s “Super Time Force” were AMAZING! Simply AMAZING! Enjoy some the reveal trailer for Transistor, since we aren’t getting it until 2014 at the earliest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTik6sYT_BE
7. I love Cosplayers, I really do. I respect the amount of time that it takes to get that character you are representing down to a “T”. But on the same token I have nothing but disgust when people try to cosplay outside of their element. I looking at you “Cammy” cosplayer that definitely should have not tried to pull that off…. I’m still having nightmares…….
8. And lastly and perhaps the most importantly. GUYS and GALS, this is a public event, do everyone a favor; Shower and use deodorant. The amount of funk that was experienced was hella-bad.
I’ll work on getting the pictures uploaded and on the site later tomorrow. Right now I’m a bit tired, a 6 hour drive will do that to you. If you didn’t get the chance to check out Pax East 2013, you owe it to yourself to check out it out next year. Oh and do yourself a favor and take the train if you’re 2+ hours away from the event. Your wallet and sanity will thank you. And you’ll save putting on those extra miles on your car as well!
