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PAX Prime Suggestions Thread
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Everything else I could come up with sounds like it would be fairly incidental, and will likely be covered by the fact that next year there will not be some of the large one-offs there were this year.
Also, it's been said already, but Paramount? I loveded you!
As far as counterfeit badges, why not use a QR code or something and do periodic scans in lines for events that are there hours in advance? I know it won't be 100% and won't stop scammers who just go to the Expo Hall and never line up for anything. I don't know. RFID one day? Not sure how much that would cost...
(Not that I had an issue with BigRed, I just used him as an example. BYOC was fantastic for me this year, due in no small part to BigRed's effort!!)
FWIW, it was in the guide book this year.
The Cons:
1. Box Booths are annoying and I don't know what the exhibitors are thinking with them. If they're trying to create hype, it did the opposite. I didn't visit ANY of the box booths, simply because I didn't want to wait in a line without having an idea of what I was waiting for.
2. Firefall Everywhere. I found the bathroom adds entertaining, especially some bumper sticker inside a stall of the women's restroom making some joke about pooping. But I would have really liked some of that space to go to other games. I never played the game, but it was so big I wasn't even sure where to go if I wanted to play it.
3. GAME DEMO TIME LIMITS. My boyfriend and I were really looking forward to playing Guild Wars 2, but there was a 40 minute timer on the game, and people were just lining up haphazardly to play. We gave up on playing because the notion of waiting 2 hours for 3 people to play in front of us seemed absurd. You only need 15-20 (or even 10 for a shooter) at most to get the feel of a game. 40 minutes is overkill.
4. Exhibitors should be required to tape down line areas BEFORE the hoards of rabid fans rush their booths. Every year on Friday its absolute chaos. Come Saturday some booths catch on and put down tape to keep order to their lines, but this should really just be mandatory. Worst case their line is a little empty, people notice, then go stand in the line.
5. I'd love to see more Tabletop/Board game organization at PAX. I didn't even know Paizo was doing delves until Saturday evening. And while this might not be feasible, I'd love it even more if the hours of the expo hall and the tabletop didn't completely overlap. I love the tabletop stuff but have trouble justifying a dungeon delve because I feel like I'd be missing too much in the expo hall. After a long day of walking around I want nothing more than to sit down and get back stabbed by some jerk playing a rogue at my table.
6. Lack of booth babes. As a female, I can tell if a company is taking PAX seriously if there is a Booth Babe. E3 gets them, why can't we?
The Pros:
1. Free Miniature Painting! Some people didn't show from the waiting list and me and my friends got one of the last slots on Sunday and it was awesome. Seriously one of the highlights of the weekend. The booth guy said to make sure to mention it so they get invited back, so I am - because it was unabashedly awesome.
2. The Indie Tabletop room.
3. Its PAX, its awesome.
Because booth babes are not a game company taking gamers seriously, they're a game company going, "Hurr durr, gamers spend all their time at their computers and only think with their gonads, throw something conventionally attractive at them and they'll stop and pay attention to our game."
And there was that huge survey last year, where the PAX community said they didn't want booth babes. So, yeah. Not going to happen.
+++BRONYS BEFORE BROS!+++
You can't do everything at PAX, and if events never overlapped, everything would be way over-crowded.
I'm a bit confused as to how you think having booth babes equates to taking PAX seriously. I think the opposite is true, not having them and only staffing your booth with knowledgable people shows that PAX is being taken seriously.
That said, I'm not opposed to booth babes. Eye candy never hurt anyone, so long as its in addition to actual content, not instead of.
But I also understand and agree with the general reason for why we don't have them, and understand that it's easier to just say no than to say "It's okay sometimes."
This is a very good point. The Darkness 2 booth had a good reason for having a closed booth, so I could see an exception being made for that specific situation. Most others did not have a good reason, and yes the "wait in our line to see a video" thing really irked me once I heard about it. It might seem arbitrary at first, but I do think the kibosh needs to be put to that sort of thing. PAX has always been for the gamers; making your demo video super-exclusive while taking up a huge amount of space on the Expo Floor just serves to generate hype. Like I said before, if you want to go the "OOOOOO this video is SOOOO EXCLUSIVE" route then you should book some time at the Paramount for your exclusive demo video unveiling, which will make it even more exclusive and simultaneously not piss off all the gamers.
RFID-equipped badges being given to a group that includes people who are even more paranoid about privacy issues than KGB agents during the Cold War doesn't seem like a good idea. Hell, I was scolded no less than 4 times during my PAX vacation about my Passport Card and why I needed to microwave it immediately to get rid of Teh Ebil RFID Chip... though to be fair I may actually do that.
...see? Paranoid.
Paid cosplay is exactly what it is, and it should be encouraged (with limits on the slut factor *cough cou*EA*gh cough*). Having people dressed in character really helps give the booth a nice ambiance, and honestly makes the whole thing a lot more enjoyable. Someone else pointed out that nobody had yet complained about the Bioshock booth essentially being a giant swag raffle with no real content. That's mostly true, but the cosplay and elaborate setup made sure it wasn't a boring booth at all. That's why nobody complained.
Closed booths suck. I know I'm like the thousandth person to mention this. Gearbox, Bioware, Sega, and EA are big offenders this year.
Expo hall hours seemed too short. I'd spend all day on the floor and there were still games I never had a chance to play, I was still spotting new titles until close on Sunday. I never even found time to check out the PAX 10 this year. Longer hours or a fourth day would be great.
I was fine with all the Firefall advertising, really. If all those ads take $10 off the price of my pass I don't care how many escalators they plaster over. But what was annoying is the loud noise of the display they had erected. Every beat was like a hammer to my head.
It sounds like counterfeit badges were a big issue this year. Why are PAX badges made so easily to replicate? It seems like adding a hologram or something else would be an easy fix. I'll take the slight price increase if it means keeping out all the forged passes.
The Pegasus theater was way too small this year. My friend wanted to go to one of the panels there and we were turned around a half hour before it even started.
Okay, and now some of that awesomeness:
Paramount theater. Need I say more? It was my first time in the venue and boy was it grand to see so many fans of the panels I went to there. But what was up with the two rows of "VIP" seating on the balcony? There were a few dozen empty seats right there in prime spots for every panel.
Swag. Swag, swag, swag, swag and more swag. I loved it, I hope more publishers have cool items again next year. I couldn't get enough goodies to take home and brag about.
Less stinky people. For real, I'm glad that more gamers are becoming less tolerable of bad hygiene.
Expanding to the sixth floor, using the lobby areas for booth space, and minimizing the sumo lounge was great. I was very surprised and happy to see more vendors too.
Offering swag bags at the first panels was welcome too. Both last year and this year I started out with a panel first thing Friday morning. I was very grateful to get a swag bag at the Pegasus theater first thing this time around.
Seattle Police and WSCCS getting rid of scalpers. Thank you!
And halo fest...don't know why that was thrown onto PAX but meh...i don't make the calls.
But the main issue I had with this years PAX was with the lines for the exhibitions. I was unable to attend some events due to to the long waits. This is fine, i can wait in line for my turn. But what i did not enjoy was the closing of the lines. I had wanted to try star wars: the old republic at least once. On Saturday they closed the line because it was too long and said to show up in two hours, as we could not form a line. I get the point about fire hazard, but couldn't it have been fine to put the line somewhere else instead of closing it? i even showed up 1st thing on Sunday to attend it and they closed the line instantly(like 10:01)(and i was at least within the top 100 people into the center that day). At another booth, such as Riot Games, this was not the case, as there was a line for it, along with a line for another booth along the wall. this was crazy to get by and yet it wasn't considered a fire hazard(or from what i heard about it). Yes the popularity of these games are on different levels...but my main wish is to find a way to allow people to wait in line for events without shunning them away.
In conclusion: paramount was great. halo fest, not really. and the lines: try having a better way for lines to be formed without forcing them away/having them become a fire hazard.
Everything else was great. I will see you all next year.
A good idea/compromise might be to have a "Cosplay" meetup somewhere centralish. Just so people can see the outfits in one place. I am not a huge Cosplayer, (as in not at all) but it was fun to see people walking around, and if they had had some central meeting time somewhere I'd have dropped in to see them. I know not the security concerns however, so It may not even be possible to do such a thing (although it seemed like by 12PM, the Queue room was consistantly empty, so that could be a good idea maybe?) Sure there wouldn't be a stage, judging or anything like that, but I think it'd be a good way for all you Crazy (used in the good way!) cosplayers could meet, swap ideas, and all us crazy gawkers could swing by and praise you.
As far as open space goes, the WSCC is not abundant. If you're off to the side, places like the 4th floor north lobby (by the skybridge), 2nd floor south galleria (by Juicy), or 1st floor north lobby (main entrance) are the only decent places springing to mind.
As I mentioned previously, there *was* a cosplay "competition"/panel in one of the theatres, run by Crabcat Industries who did the awesome Femshep/Wrex cosplays and were hanging out around the Bioware booth the rest of the weekend.
The Kinnect area was way to big
Too many small games had prime spots (Rayman and Rachet and Clank)
Too many Dancing games that took up way to much space( they had to beg people to go up and dance)
Big booths need more playing stations or they need to hand out tickets like the Star Wars booth did
Sorry, missed that post. Like I said, don't actually Cosplay, only comment on those who do as they go by. Is that "Cospectating?"
Firefall, I get that you were a major sponsor and I appreciate the effort, but you effed up my contact lenses something fierce with your stupid smoke machines and I nearly fell on my face more than once from the confluence of smoke, lasers/light show bullcrap and incredibly thick carpeting. I would highly recommend an all-out ban on smoke machine.
And I know it's been mentioned multiple times in here, but for the love of dog, demos 30-40 minutes long? And the corresponding 3-4 hour line? Yeowch, no thanks, didn't play a demo the entire weekend and was sorely disappointed in that fact.
I was so excited when I first heard that Crabcat was going to have a panel at PAX (which first happened at Prime 2010), because I think it's the perfect answer to that! Instead of having a "cosplay" event, or cosplay competition, a Crabcat panel is comprised of nerds, talking about the nerdy thing they do. This is exactly what PAX is about.
So if you're looking for ways to include a celebration of costumes in your PAX weekend, look up what Crabcat is up to at PAX. Chances are it will be the perfect event to get your "Cospectating" on.
On top of all that, when one of the balls got bounced up and landed on one of the fire escapes outside the Paramount Theatre where we were all waiting, some idiot decided it would be a good idea to scale the wall, Assassin's Creed-style and retrieve it so he could get cheers from the crowd. Not only was this incredibly dangerous (he was maybe 15 feet up) but unnecessary (someone could have easily stepped out there from inside to grab it). The enforcers that rushed over when they saw him up on the wall used their megaphone to have everyone applaud this dude and cheer him for being so heroic. Come on, it was a stupid thing to do.
The point of this is: please, enforcers, do not bring beach balls to the lineups. We don't need you to entertain us, we're doing just fine.
I know how easy it is to make fun of the many times I used the word "balls" here, but this was a real issue for my group of friends that made the hour and a half or so of waiting in line really unpleasant when it didn't need to be.
Aside from that, PAX was awesome this year!
Thanks for everything!
1. The best part about PAX for me was the panels and the events with Mike and Jerry. I opened my PAX experience with the keynote and the Q & A, both were amazing. Then I experienced the expo......... The lines for games were incredibly long. I have friends who have been to PAX in the past so I was prepared for long lines but this was ridiculous. Some of the booths were so poorly managed that nobody knew where the line began and where it ended. The Battlefield 3 booth was one of the worst offenders for this. It turns out they were letting people play the game as long as they wanted once they got in. Are you kidding me? With 70,000 people in attendance you can't run a booth like that. However I do want to give kudos to Epic Games. They knew how to manage a booth. They had two 5 person games of hoard mode running for two rounds each. Once the two rounds were up the next five people filed in, the line moved super fast. That's how you do it.
2. I really wanted to see the PAX 10 as well as other indie games but had a hell of a time finding them. I finally found them all the way up on the 6th floor in the corner on my last day. It was 10 times better than the 4th floor. Shorter lines, developers willing to talk to you about their games and some very creative work on display. Put them on the main floor next year. They deserve it.
Honestly it was a blast. But if the expo hall doesn't change in 2012 I may just avoid it all together.
Suggestions:
-Please never, EVER, subject another living human to the Pegasus queue room again. Failing that, put in about a dozen fans and let people sit while waiting.
-The PAX 10 felt lost. No slight intended against the 6th floor, but the PAX 10 are pretty important to the spirit of the event and needed to be more prominent.
-I might be crazy, but could not the 4th floor's big Queue room be used for something else after the doors open in the morning? That's a fairly big space that seemed ripe for conversion into a giant beanbag lounge, theater, or tabletop room once the floor was open and the lines gone.
-The Giantbomb guys signed up for the latest Friday slot available so they could go overtime, but then had to cut their planned panel/show 30+ minutes short because the Sheraton didn't want the noise going late. Either the panelists need to know even the late time slots are ironclad, or the Sheraton needs to lighten up.
-I don't have a problem with Firefall sponsoring a bunch of stuff for PAX, heck money for PAX is enjoyment for me, but their Giga-booth was just absurd. Dark, oppressive, eating smaller booths, and with lots of poorly used space. It's a poster child for booth guidelines being needed going forward.
-This is probably unworkable, but how about a "take a number" system for demos? Instead of standing in line, take a number or reserve a time so you can go out and see/do other things while you wait.
-I think the "Booth Babe Ban" has its heart in the right place, but I also think it's just a touch unnecessary to ban them totally. If cosplaying as a character for the game and/or handing out swag they're doing fine work and freeing up other employees to answer questions or troubleshoot problems. Keep them limited to the Expo floor, so they aren't thong-crashing the Tabletop tournaments, but otherwise take it easy on the working women.
-I really, really hated the closed booths and would like to suggest that sort of thing be banned, especially in the case of hands-off demos. Its one thing to do a stage demo at one of the theaters, but on the show floor making people wait hours to watch (as well as making everyone navigate around you big, ugly box) is pretty uncool. Other games just hung a big screen and did their demos out in the open, so there was no line and people in other lines could watch while they waited, IMO the organizers should encourage that sort of setup. Of course, ME3 was doing both so who knows.
-I might study moving PAX to the SeaHawks' stadium's event center, which is a tad bigger and has much higher ceilings, to alleviate the crammed-in feelings. Of course on the downside it's too far from the lovely Paramount and the convenient Sheraton. Maybe just lobby the city/state to stop messin' around get on with the big WSCC expansion already.
2-This has come up a few times. It would be very difficult to move objects that could occupy that room in and out each day. Plus, being on concrete sucks for some departments.
3-There was a poll. The people spoke. It was made so.
4-Not true/feasible. The Century Link Event Center is 200,000 sq ft. The WSCC (where the majority of PAX Prime is held) is 334,706 sq ft. Also, faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar! (Benaroya was too far for Main Theatre!)
i like the idea of companies having to work the line space in to their booth space.
2. please keep the weekend the same. having it on labor day weekend just sucks for anyone that's not married to their console.
3. try harder to keep industry only parties to a minimum. (i'm looking at you alienware!)
4. please move PAX ten back to the main expo area. the 6th floor was NOT mostly indie games as some have described, but seemed to be a mish mash of whatever couldn't be fit on the main floor. ie: gaems, corsair (both of whom should have been placed near cooler master and zotec,) and a bunch of board/mini games that were over by the wotc people last year and seemed like a good place for them.
5. no more raffles in the main expo area unless the booth space has enough room to hold the people.
6. bring back the freeplay areas! i know they were there, but the shrinkage pretty much ruined them. oh and work out a better timer system for them. i waited in line for the pc freeplay area and got to a seat, just to have an enforcer come by within ten minutes and kick me out. i went back and waited in line again, got a seat, started the timer on my watch, and had another enforcer come by in less then 3 minutes ( let me repeat that: 3 minutes!) i showed him my watch and asked if the time alotment had been shortened that drastically. he ended up letting me stay but still. i know this wasn't the only two times this happened.
7. can we PLEASE have something other then a headset/ear bud type PAX item next year?
7. booth babes. who cares?!?!? let them be there if a company wants them. i voted against the ban last time, and still think it's a silly puritan based idea. what next? all attendees must wear long robes and masks so as to not harsh anyones vibe? yeah, yeah i know. the crowd has spoken, much like the tea baggers. whatever....
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PAX Prime 2014 Buttoneering!
in other words, instead of coming to PAX with a product they can be proud of displaying to the masses, they made people wait in line for upwards of 3-4 hours to see a blue screen?
Yes, that's totally what I meant by that, and not at all taking it to absurd lengths.
I'm sure they went through a lot of trouble to make sure they had a working build. However when you're working on something that is several months away from a release, you aren't going to be able to show something guaranteed to be bug free. Everyone likes schadenfreude, and "olol demo crashed, this games sux" stories circulate the internet with amazing swiftness. Having it crash on a huge screen in front of thousands of attendees is quite a bit different than in front of a small theater of attendees.
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Honestly that argument is ignoring an awful lot of common sense reasons that it's not so. The media plays those same demos, who will be quite happy to report embarrassing crashes no matter the crowd size. Many of the demos we were seeing were the exact same ones they showed off at E3, such as Mass Effect, where they were playing to much larger crowds. The walled-off booth thing is a fairly new development at PAX, last year crashes were presumably just as likely, yet THE walled off booth was basically portal 2. Unless something has radically changed in the last year it seems unlikely that half of our expo companies suddenly don't trust their games to not crash for a demo.
Secondly, yeah, fine, companies are going to control the viewer experience to the very limits that PAX allows. That's their job. But it's PAX's job to aim for what actually makes the best convention. If it's turning into an arms war of over-sized, walled off demo booths, then PAX should consider restricting that design, unless it's for a very specific reason, such as that over-18 booth. Personally I feel instead of getting more content and products in the expo hall thanks to converting space on the 6th floor, all we got was wastefully large booths on the main expo hall, a bunch of the little guys got pushed up to the 6th floor, leaving only a slight gain in the actual amount of product displayed, and we lost out on the ton of console freeplay space, which was one of my favorite sections last PAX.
I know the big companies get pissy if they're forced onto an equal footing with little indy developers and smaller titles, but... tough beans. If PAX became the kind of convention where their number one goal was finding better ways for the exhibitors to advertise at me, I'd have no reason to go. I still enjoyed the convention, but some of the changes this year's made me a little nervous if it's going to turn into a trend.
1) That's against Wheaton's Law, sorry it happened
2) I'm not sure what you actually mean by this, but having it Labor Day weekend is a huge benefit for people to get time off from work and other various reasons. Of course there's the flip side that it's probably more expensive to travel.
3) Considering the industry parties are run by various companies and in no way related to PAX, those will probably still happen.
4) I didn't mind the 6th floor, and don't understand the hate for it. BUT, I do agree that PAX 10 needed to be moved back to the main hall.
5) Yeah, raffles need to be held differently.
6) Lots of complaints about the PC Freeplay (rightfully so).
7) I dunno, I almost bought this years. Still, opinions and all that.
7) er.. 8) No. There's a lot more to it than a "puritan based" reason.
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Of course it will. PAX is a business, and Khoo is just as concerned with maintaining a good relationship with exhibitors and advertisers as he is with keeping attendees happy-- perhaps more so. Frankly, at this point revenue from exhibitors and advertisers is likely a large enough chunk of total PAX revenue that PA LLC is not likely to act on anyone's complaints regarding the expo hall unless they'd be likely to get sued otherwise.
So, I'm not sure if this is still true, but I think PAX used to be something very close to a "break even" enterprise. With basically all the exhibitors paying for the party which is PAX.
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Moot Point, since it's not "A or B" it's "A and B." The exhibitors won't show up if the people don't come and the people may not come if the exhibitors don't come (or, if you won't accept that because you're about to say "it shouldn't be about the Expohall!!1!111!" I say firstly "That's your view, and I'm making gross generalizations not trying to be specific" and secondly "Well someone has to pay the bills so the people can come at all.")
So they have to walk a tight line between "keeping attendee's happy" and "keeping exhibitors happy." Obviously most attendees would want everthing possible (no lines!, tons of swag!, a chance to play every demo on the floor! Free Puppies!) and the exhibitors want the most buzz. Balancing that cannot be easy.
Edit (Fixed a quote tag at 5PM CST, sorry jonxp for accidently deleting your part of that!)
^This. I was incredibly close to throwing up or passing out due to the lack of air in this room, and I had no room to sit down.
-Also before we were allowed to get into the queue line they didn't have a place for us to line up. So even though we got there 30 minutes earlier then others they turned us away told us to back away from the queue line room. Then they later yelled at a crowd it was open, at which point it got bull-rushed. So there was at least 30-40 people who got ahead of us who weren't waiting beforehand. Not cool.
-Shade for outdoor waiting lines would be awesome for all the pale pasty nerds like myself.
-In addition, you can never have too few water stations. So something for people waiting outside the Paramount Theater would have been nice.
Other than that it was an amazing job. Enforcers were great and friendly. I had an amazing time!
I, for one, will never go again if PAX becomes an expo for exhibitors more so than for gamers. It's true that someone has to pay the bills, but with 60,000 strong, it shouldn't be that hard to find exhibitors willing to pay AND be willing to be civil to its customers.
I wish there were more of a variety for the concerts.
I've been to 5 PAXs now. MC Frontalot, Jonathan Coulton, and Metroid Metal have played every one I've been too. Anamanguchi have only played 1. I honestly have more fun checking out the shows going on at the MAGFest Jam Space than the Friday/Saturday night concerts. How fucking awesome would it be if They Might Be Giants played?
Other suggestions...
MC Chris
Bit Shifter
Glomag
The Advantage
Weird Al
The Black Mages
Nerf Herder
Weezer
Ozma