Crowds of over-bearing geeks stared at their Nintendo DS’ as they wrapped around the corner of Meydenbauer Center in downtown Bellevue. These long lines are an anomaly for a city whose pastimes include picking up a Starbucks latte at the drive-thru while on the way to pick up the kids from soccer practice in their polished Hummer. They all waited on a warm summer day to enter Penny Arcade Expo, otherwise known as PAX06. Starting on Friday, Augest 25th gamers flew, drove, and walked to one of North America’s largest electronic consumer shows to stay the weekend, invading upscale downtown Bellevue hotels. Almost doubling in attendees every year, PAX has become an overnight success in the gaming convention world. PAX went from 3500 attendees its first year in 2004 to 19,323 attendees this year.

Created by illustrious web comic artists Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade, the instant success can often be attributed to not only the fame of its patrons, but the wide variety of gamers it is meant to include. Increasingly, gamers are referred to as a subculture despite the fact that many gamers consider themselves to belong to different subcultures simultaneously. PAX brings together tabletop, console, PC, card, and pen and paper games into the same arena. Tycho and Gabe assert that PAX has filled a void in the gaming convention world. Many gamers take great pride in their gaming roots, nostalgia and emotions run high as soon as someone pulls out an original Nintendo Entertainment System or the Zelda theme is played. Gamers even piled into concerts Friday and Saturday night in the main theater, where there was a host of instrumental video-game music by the “Video Game Pianist” and the NESkimos along with performances by video-game rappers MC Frontalot and Optimus Rhyme.

Since the U.S. Army has taken to rappelling from the rafters at gaming expositions, the Army has taken great efforts to target the video games market, but they are not seeking profit, instead they seek fresh recruits. The jockishness of the U.S. Army’s first-person-shooter game called America’s Army lingered at the edges of this virtual fantasyland at PAX. Hailed as a major recruiting tool and as an ultra-realistic game, the sense death provided a queasy background more suited for Jean Baudrillard or Orson Scott Card. Constant assurances that the Army consisted of hardened warriors (demonstrated by commercials using real footage of Army operations with lines like “No cheat codes. No power-ups”) clashed readily with the lottery offerings of swag such as a high-end graphics card, Army action figures, and a skateboard with a Meal Ready To Eat design, in exchange for gamer’s address and email.

Brandon Eng
Thanks to Rev. Beau for the pics