Where do we sign up to try out the big new games?

DrunkVeteran

I tried searching for this but could not find the answer. So last year was our first PAX West, showed up on Friday, saw AC: Odyssey was playable, stood in line for about 30 minutes, and a nice young lady came around and asked what time frame we had signed up for. It was at this point we realized you had to pre-register to try the games, so my question where was/is the registration for doing this type of thing? Any input appreciated, thank you!

forbiddenvoid

It's not the case that you have to sign up for most of the games in advance. It's really on an exhibitor by exhibitor basis. Most developers do not have sign ups.

Some do, though, and if they do, the sign up method will vary (they each have their own).

DrunkVeteran

Got it, so best to just ask before jumping into any lines Thanks for the info!

divisionten

PlayStation VR has online signup. Download their app and timeslots for their games will open in waves during the day.

SweetCosmicPope

Most of the ones I've seen like that you don't have to pre-register per se, but you need to line up early and they'll hand out time slots until they run out. Last year for me the big one was KHIII and they gave out all the slots within a few minutes of the hall opening, which was kind of a bummer. The year before, Nintendo Nindies was handing them out until about 11 or 12 before they ran out and I was able to get the last time slot of the day. The moral of the story is that if you want to get a decent shot at a timeslot for the AAA games, you need to be there when the doors open, take the quickest entry (cough, annex, cough) and make a bee line for the game you want to play.

forbiddenvoid

Oculus actually used Guidebook to fill up slots a few years ago, but they were also still allowing walk-ups; just had two separate lines.

midna

SweetCosmicPope wrote: »

Most of the ones I've seen like that you don't have to pre-register per se, but you need to line up early and they'll hand out time slots until they run out. Last year for me the big one was KHIII and they gave out all the slots within a few minutes of the hall opening, which was kind of a bummer. The year before, Nintendo Nindies was handing them out until about 11 or 12 before they ran out and I was able to get the last time slot of the day. The moral of the story is that if you want to get a decent shot at a timeslot for the AAA games, you need to be there when the doors open, take the quickest entry (cough, annex, cough) and make a bee line for the game you want to play.

This. If you stand any chance of playing any of the major AAA games, you'll need to line up in the annex line around 7:00 or earlier. Last year, everyone was scrambling to get into Artifact (oh how the turntables), and the line would be capped within the first few minutes for the rest of the day.

Playstation will have you download their app. I know that one for sure. I think it's Playstation Experience?

divisionten

midna wrote: »

SweetCosmicPope wrote: »

Most of the ones I've seen like that you don't have to pre-register per se, but you need to line up early and they'll hand out time slots until they run out. Last year for me the big one was KHIII and they gave out all the slots within a few minutes of the hall opening, which was kind of a bummer. The year before, Nintendo Nindies was handing them out until about 11 or 12 before they ran out and I was able to get the last time slot of the day. The moral of the story is that if you want to get a decent shot at a timeslot for the AAA games, you need to be there when the doors open, take the quickest entry (cough, annex, cough) and make a bee line for the game you want to play.

This. If you stand any chance of playing any of the major AAA games, you'll need to line up in the annex line around 7:00 or earlier. Last year, everyone was scrambling to get into Artifact (oh how the turntables), and the line would be capped within the first few minutes for the rest of the day.

Playstation will have you download their app. I know that one for sure. I think it's Playstation Experience?

It is. For PSVR and their big ticket games (Eg Detroit or Spider-Man, or similar) you reserve a time slot. Smaller games with only 1-2 stations devoted to it are walk up.

every day's great

It's very frustrating, but many exhibitors have implemented a horrendous system where you have to be at the booth as soon as (or preferably before) the exhibit hall opens to fight over the 150-300 demo tickets and/or get into the line before it is capped for the day. Once the line is capped you're basically out of luck; you can walk around and keep trying to get back in the line, but in many cases (Nintendo) the line never really uncapped all weekend.

On the other hand, last year I sprinted to Valve's booth and managed to get in the Artifact line before they capped it; after waiting 90min and observing that the line had barely moved I estimated that it would be another 3-4 hours until I actually got to play, so I decided I would much rather do other things at PAX during that time.

This system definitely brings out the worst of the usually friendly PAX crowd - there was a lot of running, a lot of frustrated and disappointed people, and I kept getting pushed from behind by overly eager attendees who wanted to get to their preferred booth in time. Not fun.

every day's great

divisionten wrote: »

midna wrote: »

SweetCosmicPope wrote: »

Playstation will have you download their app. I know that one for sure. I think it's Playstation Experience?

It is. For PSVR and their big ticket games (Eg Detroit or Spider-Man, or similar) you reserve a time slot. Smaller games with only 1-2 stations devoted to it are walk up.

Definitely use the PS Experience app to sign up for the Sony stuff. I think last year I actually managed to get a time slot for one of the less popular games. Then my slot turned out to be during something else I wanted to do, like play D&D. Which is fine, because D&D is probably more fun anyway.