Gamers give PAX major growth spurt

Bill Hutchens, for the Northwest Guardian

A few weeks ago, the Entertainment Software Association, the group that regulates the video games industry, announced the dramatic downscaling of its annual games convention.

The shift will make the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, an invitation-only event focused on news media, acing out tens of thousands of fanboys.

The news spread like wildfire across Internet gaming forums. But when the smoke cleared, what was left was a resounding "Who needs it?"

We've got PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo, a gaming event hosted by gamers for gamers.

The third annual PAX takes place today through Sunday. It'll fill up Bellevue's Meydenbauer Center and spill out into three nearby hotels. In addition to Northwest and West Coast game fans, PAX is drawing caravans of players from around the country.

"PAX has clearly been growing in leaps and bounds," said Robert Khoo, Penny Arcade's director of business development, adding that, even before the downsizing of E3, the show was on track to draw more than 17,000 fans this year.

But while E3 is becoming a media-only event and other expositions, such as the Game Developers Conference, focus on game makers, "PAX is all about the community, and Penny Arcade is dedicated to keeping it that way," Khoo said. "We don't want to be E3. PAX is a place that hard-core gamers, whether they work in the industry or not, come to be completely immersed in game play, game music and game culture."

Readers of The News Tribune's online games forum were no strangers to the latest news about E3 and PAX.

"I believe ESA has sunk it's own battleship, so to speak," wrote one user, nicknamed "ExtraNoise." "And good riddance, too, if they're going to do something as stupid as this. I was really looking forward to making 2007 my first E3 experience. Having now watched the convention year after year, I was finally in a position that I would be able to go next May."

Reminded about PAX, ExtraNoise replied:

"Oh, you know I'm already going to PAX. Truth is any gamer living in this area should attend it, especially now that E3 has been crushed. We're fortunate enough to live less than an hour's drive away."

PAX is a confluence of video games, comics, role-playing games and card games. Attendees will have a chance to see top-secret projects from game makers such as Nintendo, Microsoft, RockStar and UbiSoft and try out new tabletop games from Wizards of the Coast, the Renton company that owns the rights to Dungeons & Dragons and the Magic: The Gathering card game.

Penny Arcade is an online comic, or webcomic, created by Jerry "Tycho" Holkins and Mike "Gabe" Krahulik of Seattle. The duo have been blogging and publishing their comic three times each week for several years. They've published three books featuring collections of their comics, and a fourth will make its debut soon. The comic and blog touch on a broad range of gaming and geek-culture issues.

In addition to PAX, the creators host the annual Child's Play charity event in which game fans raise money for children's hospitals around the world. During the 2005 holiday season, Penny Arcade raised more than $600,000 for the cause – a victory, the creators said, against those who view gamers as purely antisocial beings.

On opening day in its first year, PAX had gamers lined up for blocks as they waited to get into Meydenbauer Center. The entry process has been streamlined to prevent those backups, and inside gamers are still met with rooms for computer and TV-console gaming tournaments, table-top gaming tournaments, gaming and webcomic seminars, musical performances and demonstrations of upcoming games from dozens of developers.

In the annual Omegathon, a multievent video and tabletop gaming contest, 20 selected gamers compete for a grand prize. This year it's a new car, a Scion xB decked out with high-tech extras.

In addition, the show is just a chance for fans to rub shoulders and talk to the guys behind the comic strip. Holkins and Krahulik spend much of their time at the show signing autographs and talking to fans when they're not participating in discussion panels.

Evening events this year include concerts by several video-game bands and "nerdcore" artists. The NESkimos (NES is a reference to the old-school Nintendo Entertainment System) and the Mini Bosses will grind out their heavy-metal renditions of popular game theme songs, including those from Nintendo's Mario and Zelda games. The Video Game Pianist will give his classic piano treatment to popular theme songs, and Optimus Rhyme and MC Frontalot will spout their nerdcore hip-hop stylings with subject matter ranging from computers to "Star Wars."

By the way, if you have to be told that Optimus Rhyme is a thinly veiled allusion to Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots (of Transformers fame), perhaps you're not ready for PAX.

If you go, listen for big announcements about next year's show. Organizers hinted that PAX has outgrown Meydenbauer Center and is moving to a venue with triple the space in 2007.

What: Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX

When: 3 p.m. to 2 a.m. tonight, 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday

Where: Meydenbauer Center, 11100 N.E. Sixth St., Bellevue

Admission: $20 Friday and Sunday, $25 Saturday or $45 for a three-day pass at the door