The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
PAX Buttoneering - Event Schedule and Official Button info added!
To my dismay, I heard there may not be PAX East Trading Cards this year. While I don't attend East, I know how much fun having a trading game can be. While Buttoneering has traditionally been a Prime event, I thought I would go ahead and set it up on the site for you guys. I'll need suggestions about when and where to do meetups (at least the traditional Post-Omegathon meetup). Aside from that, very little coordination is required besides making sure you're on the website.
We'll be on a slightly compressed timescale due to East being in March, but that gives you guys a little over a month to design and order your buttons. I'll contact PureButtons for a coupon code immediately.
I hope you guys are interested! Please feel free to ask questions or make suggestions for what might be different at East, since I don't know.
What is Buttoneering?
Buttoneering is a meta-game that takes place every year at PAX Prime (and to a lesser extent PAX East and other events). You play by printing up a large number of buttons with a picture that represents you, and then find other people at your event to trade with you. It is remarkably easy to do, and it's a great way to meet people. Additionally, you come away with a huge number of buttons that are a unique souvenir of your time.
What are the rules?
Well, there are only a couple. First, if you get a button you should give a button, and vice versa. This applies to the "avatar" button, which is the one that represents you personally. If you have made other buttons representing a group, game, or are just something special, you can set your own rules for what people need to do to get them. As usual, follow Wheaton's Law for maximum fun.
How did Buttoneering start?
It started out as a problem at PAX 2008 for members of the Pax Forum Community. They wanted a way to be able to pick each other out of the crowd of more than 55,000 gamers. The initial idea was for t-shirts with everyone's avatars printed on them. Once someone pointed out the added benefit of being able to smell fellow forum members coming, other ideas were proposed.
Finally, everyone settled on making buttons with their avatars on them. After some initial research, it was discovered that one could get bulk amounts of these created for relatively cheaply, and the idea of PAX Button Exchange was born!
Where can I get buttons?
We recommended PureButtons because of their excellent customer service, good prices, and being all-around cool folks. No, we don't get paid to say that. If you're not in the U.S., feel free to ask in the thread to find info on providers closer to home, or if you're the trusting type, ask if you can ship the buttons to someone who is, to save yourself some shipping costs.
How do I participate?
There are four steps for participating in Buttoneering:
Other frequently asked questions:
Event Schedule
Meetup Location - In front of Bandland.
Meetup Times - Saturday: 1 hour prior to Expo Hall opening AND Sunday: Immediately after the Omegathon
Meetup Instructions - Go the meeting place at the right time and yell "BUTTONS!". Trust me, it's far more effective than any sign, and has been our call for five years.
Official Button Pickup - Come by the BYOC Security desk any time and pick up your Official Button. I won't be there, but just ask the Enforcer behind the desk for one. They can get busy at times (especially Friday morning), so if you see a line, go look around the show and come back. There is no button drop off this time (sadface) but hopefully in future years we can get someone to take over that for East.
About BUTTONEERING!.org
As of 2011, our official Buttoneering website is http://buttoneering.org. Usage is completely optional, but it does provide a number of benefits that make it worth the 60 seconds or so that it takes to sign up...
This way, we have a very convenient way for everyone to see the buttons and hopefully build upon it with buttoneering apps and the like!
So sign up, (make sure to use your forum name from here!), check your email for the confirmation, and then upload your artwork.
Before clicking on any of the links below, be aware that there are some NSFW buttons.
Click here for the list of this year's buttons!
Click here for last Prime's buttons.
Are you not on the list? Then you didn't sign up at http://buttoneering.org, so do it right away!
We'll be on a slightly compressed timescale due to East being in March, but that gives you guys a little over a month to design and order your buttons. I'll contact PureButtons for a coupon code immediately.
I hope you guys are interested! Please feel free to ask questions or make suggestions for what might be different at East, since I don't know.
What is Buttoneering?
Buttoneering is a meta-game that takes place every year at PAX Prime (and to a lesser extent PAX East and other events). You play by printing up a large number of buttons with a picture that represents you, and then find other people at your event to trade with you. It is remarkably easy to do, and it's a great way to meet people. Additionally, you come away with a huge number of buttons that are a unique souvenir of your time.
What are the rules?
Well, there are only a couple. First, if you get a button you should give a button, and vice versa. This applies to the "avatar" button, which is the one that represents you personally. If you have made other buttons representing a group, game, or are just something special, you can set your own rules for what people need to do to get them. As usual, follow Wheaton's Law for maximum fun.
How did Buttoneering start?
It started out as a problem at PAX 2008 for members of the Pax Forum Community. They wanted a way to be able to pick each other out of the crowd of more than 55,000 gamers. The initial idea was for t-shirts with everyone's avatars printed on them. Once someone pointed out the added benefit of being able to smell fellow forum members coming, other ideas were proposed.
Finally, everyone settled on making buttons with their avatars on them. After some initial research, it was discovered that one could get bulk amounts of these created for relatively cheaply, and the idea of PAX Button Exchange was born!
Where can I get buttons?
We recommended PureButtons because of their excellent customer service, good prices, and being all-around cool folks. No, we don't get paid to say that. If you're not in the U.S., feel free to ask in the thread to find info on providers closer to home, or if you're the trusting type, ask if you can ship the buttons to someone who is, to save yourself some shipping costs.
How do I participate?
There are four steps for participating in Buttoneering:
- Choose your button size and shape, and make your artwork. 1.5 inch round buttons are by far the most popular, and are a good compromise between price and size.
- Order your buttons. 100 buttons is a good base amount, but feel free to go with more. If you plan to order from PureButtons, be sure to use the coupon code PAX15 for 15% off.
- Upload your artwork to BUTTONEERING!, our official Buttoneering site. This is totally optional, but it provides a great way to keep track of your collection. Yes, it asks for an email, but I promise I will only use them for site communication (which, to this point, has never happened).
- At PAX, trade with other Buttoneers. It's MUCH easier than you would think.
Other frequently asked questions:
Q. Why do you only list Purebuttons.com as a source of buttons? Are you banging the owner?
You are free to have your buttons made by anyone, make them your self if you'd like. Our prior experience shopping around last year has shown that you really can't beat the price Purebuttons offers for buttons in bulk. If you can, let us know your insider info.
Q. How do I get a button? What are these "bonus buttons"?
The buttons fall in to two categories, the "avatar" or "main" buttons, and the "bonus" variety. While there are no set rules for trading them, these general guidelines are encouraged:
- Avatar buttons should be traded for other Avatar buttons, with no challenges or criteria expected to be fulfilled other than you are both Buttoneers.
- Bonus buttons may (or may not!) have special criteria for receiving them, and may go to people outside the button game who fulfill the criteria. This could be a challenge ("What is the flightspeed of an unladen swallow?"), a requirement ("You must be a member of the CEOs of America Club"), or one may just ask for one (remember to say "Please").
Q. I want to make people stand on their head, nude, while singing "Yankee Doodle" to receive my buttons! Can't I do that?
It is perfectly within your rights, but don't expect many people to trade their buttons back with you.
Q. Do I have to purchase hundreds of buttons to participate?
Purchase as many or as little as you want. As they say the more the merrier, more than likely you will only be able to recieve as many buttons as you have to give. Last year a somewhat active person could easily go through 100+ buttons.
Q. With 55,000+ people, how will I find you all to get my trade on?
Many if not most of us will be attending various community ran events. Feel free to stop by the Pre-PAX Dinner, the Pre-PAX Movie, Pre-PAX Pubcrawl, or the Pre-PAX Breakfast. We'll be there in droves. No one had any problems finding buttons last year. We stand out pretty hard.
Q. I want to make sure I get EVERY SINGLE BUTTON I can, will there be a Buttoneer meetup?
YES. The tentative plan is to meetup somewhere right after PAX lets out on Sunday.
Q. You said this is a game! How do we know who won?
Everyone is a winner! Especially you! You're so special, you know that?
Q. Will I be able to fly with my buttons. Are they considered an instrument of death?
As confirmed by the US TSA and experience from past years, 1' -1.5' buttons are not classified as an instrument of death even if you have a 100, and can be carried on or checked (they did say that depending on the TSA Agent you may be asked [forced at gun point] to check the buttons).
But remember this only applies to people whose flight originates in the US. If you are flying into the US with buttons make sure you check with your TSA equivalent before bringing them on a plane. The TSA people here also highly suggested that you check with US Customs (contact via your local embassy) before you try and bring them into the country (they indicated that the problem isn't with the button it's with what you could be hiding in the button). Recap: If you’re in the US you can fly w/ buttons, if you’re not your probably better off mailing.
You are free to have your buttons made by anyone, make them your self if you'd like. Our prior experience shopping around last year has shown that you really can't beat the price Purebuttons offers for buttons in bulk. If you can, let us know your insider info.
Q. How do I get a button? What are these "bonus buttons"?
The buttons fall in to two categories, the "avatar" or "main" buttons, and the "bonus" variety. While there are no set rules for trading them, these general guidelines are encouraged:
- Avatar buttons should be traded for other Avatar buttons, with no challenges or criteria expected to be fulfilled other than you are both Buttoneers.
- Bonus buttons may (or may not!) have special criteria for receiving them, and may go to people outside the button game who fulfill the criteria. This could be a challenge ("What is the flightspeed of an unladen swallow?"), a requirement ("You must be a member of the CEOs of America Club"), or one may just ask for one (remember to say "Please").
Q. I want to make people stand on their head, nude, while singing "Yankee Doodle" to receive my buttons! Can't I do that?
It is perfectly within your rights, but don't expect many people to trade their buttons back with you.
Q. Do I have to purchase hundreds of buttons to participate?
Purchase as many or as little as you want. As they say the more the merrier, more than likely you will only be able to recieve as many buttons as you have to give. Last year a somewhat active person could easily go through 100+ buttons.
Q. With 55,000+ people, how will I find you all to get my trade on?
Many if not most of us will be attending various community ran events. Feel free to stop by the Pre-PAX Dinner, the Pre-PAX Movie, Pre-PAX Pubcrawl, or the Pre-PAX Breakfast. We'll be there in droves. No one had any problems finding buttons last year. We stand out pretty hard.
Q. I want to make sure I get EVERY SINGLE BUTTON I can, will there be a Buttoneer meetup?
YES. The tentative plan is to meetup somewhere right after PAX lets out on Sunday.
Q. You said this is a game! How do we know who won?
Everyone is a winner! Especially you! You're so special, you know that?
Q. Will I be able to fly with my buttons. Are they considered an instrument of death?
As confirmed by the US TSA and experience from past years, 1' -1.5' buttons are not classified as an instrument of death even if you have a 100, and can be carried on or checked (they did say that depending on the TSA Agent you may be asked [forced at gun point] to check the buttons).
But remember this only applies to people whose flight originates in the US. If you are flying into the US with buttons make sure you check with your TSA equivalent before bringing them on a plane. The TSA people here also highly suggested that you check with US Customs (contact via your local embassy) before you try and bring them into the country (they indicated that the problem isn't with the button it's with what you could be hiding in the button). Recap: If you’re in the US you can fly w/ buttons, if you’re not your probably better off mailing.
Event Schedule
Meetup Location - In front of Bandland.
Meetup Times - Saturday: 1 hour prior to Expo Hall opening AND Sunday: Immediately after the Omegathon
Meetup Instructions - Go the meeting place at the right time and yell "BUTTONS!". Trust me, it's far more effective than any sign, and has been our call for five years.
Official Button Pickup - Come by the BYOC Security desk any time and pick up your Official Button. I won't be there, but just ask the Enforcer behind the desk for one. They can get busy at times (especially Friday morning), so if you see a line, go look around the show and come back. There is no button drop off this time (sadface) but hopefully in future years we can get someone to take over that for East.
About BUTTONEERING!.org
As of 2011, our official Buttoneering website is http://buttoneering.org. Usage is completely optional, but it does provide a number of benefits that make it worth the 60 seconds or so that it takes to sign up...
- Upload your buttons and see everyone else's
- Easily track the ones you've collected
- Lots of cool filters and sorting to help you find the button you're looking for
- Hosting for your finished button designs with the code to embed it in the forums
- Keep up with your collection from year to year, event to event, so you can see just how much awesome you've seen
This way, we have a very convenient way for everyone to see the buttons and hopefully build upon it with buttoneering apps and the like!
So sign up, (make sure to use your forum name from here!), check your email for the confirmation, and then upload your artwork.
Before clicking on any of the links below, be aware that there are some NSFW buttons.
Click here for the list of this year's buttons!
Click here for last Prime's buttons.
Are you not on the list? Then you didn't sign up at http://buttoneering.org, so do it right away!
Every time you write parallel fifths, Bach kills a kitten.
3DS Friend Code: 2707-1614-5576
PAX Prime 2014 Buttoneering!
3DS Friend Code: 2707-1614-5576
PAX Prime 2014 Buttoneering!
jonxp on
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This discussion has been closed.
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That brings up a good point. If you're planning to bring buttons from other events, please reupload them to the site for this one. I plan to make a one click button to make this easier in the future.
3DS Friend Code: 2707-1614-5576
PAX Prime 2014 Buttoneering!
edit: I thought I'd maybe expand the buttons I bring to EAST. A lot of people at Prime liked the creeper, wondering what people think of these. Gotta figure out how many to make.
EDIT: also, designing a button is much simpler than designing an entire trading card, so this seems like a great way to go, since we're down to less than 2 months til pax!
Tumblr | Twitter | Twitch | Pinny Arcade Lanyard
[3DS] 3394-3901-4002 | [Xbox/Steam] Redfield85
The turnaround is 7-10 days, maybe a week for shipping, so the cutoff is probably a little more than 3 weeks prior to pax.
Also, starting last year, the PureButtons templates are a different size! Be sure to use their updated templates, otherwise your button may not turn out exactly how you expect. The bleed no longer goes to the edge of the template so images submitted using the old dimensions may end up "zoomed in" on your actual buttons.
3DS Friend Code: 2707-1614-5576
PAX Prime 2014 Buttoneering!
Appreciate all the support and feedback! We are more than happy to offer the 15% promo to continue our support with the PAX expos.
I did receive the template email from Jon and I wanted to briefly touch on this. We did implement the new templates to accommodate the rim printing capabilities we now have. I am aware of the issue in the PSD template that does not allow you to turn off the background color. If you have the ability to use the AI template it is setup a little differently in the layers and does allow you to turn off our background color while still maintaining the template.
You can also open the AI template and export it as a PSD if you prefer one to the other. That will separate the background from the template guides. It does however group some stuff weird but it should cause issues. We are diligently working on launching new templates to resolve this issue. This would just be a temporary fix.
If anyone has any questions feel free to contact me direct. Josh@purebuttons.com
Thanks,
Josh
Thanks!
It's very common to use the artwork from your avatar on the forums (or something high resolution and similar) with just your handle on top of it. Doesn't have to be flashy!
3DS Friend Code: 2707-1614-5576
PAX Prime 2014 Buttoneering!
twitter.com/Menolly07
Yeah, that. I was prepped for card ideas, not button ideas. :-/
3DS Friend Code: 2707-1614-5576
PAX Prime 2014 Buttoneering!
Tumblr | Twitter | Twitch | Pinny Arcade Lanyard
[3DS] 3394-3901-4002 | [Xbox/Steam] Redfield85
3DS Friend Code: 2707-1614-5576
PAX Prime 2014 Buttoneering!
Totally looking forward to this.
[x]In awe that my 30 minute badge window prediction was pretty close to accurate.
[x]Badge (HOLYCRAPIGOTA4DAY!)
[x]Hotel
[ ]Airfare
[ ]Buttoneering Buttons
[ ]Challenge Coin
Seriously, though.. will have to see what I can do with buttons.. no idea how this will go =/
From the OP:
So far, no one has ever encountered an issue greater than a bag search because of all the metal in the carry on.
3DS Friend Code: 2707-1614-5576
PAX Prime 2014 Buttoneering!
What about placing the button ON the card? From a collector's standpoint, that would be hell to put in binders or display, but it sounds like a neat idea. Ha.
Tumblr | Twitter | Twitch | Pinny Arcade Lanyard
[3DS] 3394-3901-4002 | [Xbox/Steam] Redfield85
Alright, I've put it on the site and in the OP. Since I won't be at PAX East, I'm going to need to find a way to distribute them. The traditional method is for me to give them out at one of the BYOC desks, so I'll try to find some other Enforcer who is interested and can help out.
3DS Friend Code: 2707-1614-5576
PAX Prime 2014 Buttoneering!
One huge button with your avatar and then two smaller ones. One that says PAX East *year* and one that says PAX Prime *year*.
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[3DS] 3394-3901-4002 | [Xbox/Steam] Redfield85
(Also, my Dovah-Kleen button has been added as a bonus button)
PAX Prime '09 - H1N(erd)1 Survivor - Never Forget (Your Hand Sanitizer)
PAX Prime '14 Omeganaut - Result: KO in 3rd Round (Damn you, Super Avalanche 2!)
If this becomes a thing that happens at every east, then I imagine most will go for a new button for each one along with leftovers from the previous as a bonus or something.
Personally I'm going to make a new button specific for east, and then give away my Prime 2012 leftovers as a bonus button.
[x]In awe that my 30 minute badge window prediction was pretty close to accurate.
[x]Badge (HOLYCRAPIGOTA4DAY!)
[x]Hotel
[ ]Airfare
[ ]Buttoneering Buttons
[ ]Challenge Coin
Respect the Safety Zone! On the Purebuttons template, the edge of the Safety Zone represents where the button begins to curve off into oblivion. Make sure everything you want on the face of your button stays within the Safety Zone!
A template like this:
will produce a button like this: