They really dominated the news cycle there for a good bit. Gearbox probably actually pulled a smart move by being basically the only AAA-level announcement of the weekend, though they didn’t have anything playable. With the advent of digital queues (via mobile apps), I kind of wish there was a bit more AAA to balance it out. I actually think this year we may have swung a bit too far in the other direction - if I remember correctly, this is the first year that passes didn’t sell out immediately, and the expo hall did feel a bit more sparse than it has in years prior. I think the balance we struck between waiting, mingling, and actually playing games was good, though as you’ve noted, the AAA-presence has strongly waned as years have gone by. How was your time at PAX? I know you were there for half the days I was - did it feel like the right length of time for you? Finally feels like we’ve reached the end point for PAX East conventions, which is to have a whole lot of indies on display, nearly all of which have something interesting to offer in their own right. Even in its heyday, AAA titles were usually relegated to behind-closed-doors demos, and the playable ones weren’t usually worth the long wait times ( The Last of Us being the clear exception, at least personally).
To be fair, PAX East never was the bastion for large-scale games - takes place too far away from E3, both physically and timing wise. It feels like PAX has slowly but surely scaled down its AAA presence in favor of smaller games and showcases. How would you sum up your overall experience at PAX this year?ĭavid Silbert: Two words: indie heaven.
Kei Isobe: PAX East 2019 is officially over (has been for a few days, I suppose) and now that we’ve all recovered, I wanted to do a bit of a dialogue on the weekend. In the days following the trade show, The Punished Backlog’s Kei Isobe sat down with fellow writer David Silbert to discuss the good, bad, and ugly of this year’s show. The Best and Worst From Boston’s Annual Gaming Expo