NFSMike - PAX ‘09

Submitted by Drew Hahn on Wed, 2009-09-23 13:06

PAX ’09 closed its doors on Sunday evening, and with it ended my first PAX experience. I left Seattle shortly thereafter and have since been sitting back and letting it all sink in. What did I get out of PAX? How was it as a first-timer? Is there anything I would’ve done differently? And most importantly, how did SHIFT show at PAX?

First and foremost, I thought SHIFT showed tremendously well. The SHIFT booth was always busy with people both playing and watching the game. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive with praise coming for the new crash dynamic, the graphics and the cockpit view. Users continually mentioned how the combination of all three helped make the cockpit view as realistic as possible. As I told many of the visitors to the booth: “I used to play from the view behind the car, but once I started working on this game and was exposed to SHIFT’s cockpit view, I was converted.” I think there were a few more converts made this weekend at PAX!

As for what I got out of PAX and what I would’ve done differently? Well, I have to say that the best part was getting to talk to a lot of really cool people. Some conversations lasted only a couple of minutes (I let the game do the rest of the talking) while others lasted 15-20 minutes. Either way, pretty much everyone I chatted with turned out to be a standup individual. While I’ve known it for a while, PAX just further confirmed that the gaming community is filled with awesome folks.

The one thing I would do differently is make sure I have enough time to take in some of the consumer portion of the convention. For example, I would’ve liked to have spent more time at the free-play portions of the convention (they went until 3am each night!). Also, there were a lot of cool panels I would’ve liked to attend if it had been possible.

But I wouldn’t really classify those as complaints because I still had an awesome time at PAX ’09. They’re just aspects of the convention I would’ve liked to explore more. Regardless, I now have better knowledge that I can use to plan out how I will get the most out of PAX ‘10 

-  NFSMike