Фестивали игровой культуры PAX: История и Развитие

Series of gaming culture festivals

PAX (originally known as Penny Arcade Expo) is a series of gaming culture festivals involving tabletop, arcade, and video gaming. PAX is held annually in Seattle, Boston, and Philadelphia in the United States; and Melbourne in Australia. PAX was previously held annually in San Antonio in the United States. PAX was created in 2004 by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the Penny Arcade webcomic, because they wanted to attend a show exclusively for gaming. The shows include a keynote speech from an industry insider, game culture inspired concerts, panels on game topics, exhibitor booths from both independent and major game developers and publishers, a LAN party multiplayer, tabletop gaming tournaments, and video game freeplay areas.

The first Penny Arcade Expo was held on August 28–29, 2004, in Bellevue, Washington, at the Meydenbauer Center, and was attended by about 3,300 people. Renamed PAX after a common abbreviation, the event became an annual event. Attendance grew rapidly, topping 9,000 in 2005 and 19,000 in 2006. By 2007, the event had outgrown the Meydenbauer Center, and moved to the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, where it drew some 39,000 in 2007, 58,500 in 2008, 60,750 in 2009, and 70,000 in 2011. The show stopped reporting attendance numbers in 2011, citing difficulties in tracking attendance in a multi day event. In 2009, Penny Arcade partnered with ReedPOP. PAX Prime 2013, the first four day PAX, was held from August 30 to September 2, 2013. Passes sold out in six hours.

In 2010, Penny Arcade mounted PAX East, its first event outside of Seattle. Held at Boston's Hynes Convention Center from March 26–28, 2010, PAX East drew 52,290—not much fewer than the Seattle event, newly dubbed PAX Prime, which drew 67,600 attendees in 2010. PAX East moved to Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in 2011; a 2012 agreement cemented Boston as the home of PAX East until 2023. 2013 marked PAX's first international event: PAX Australia 2013, held July 19–21, 2013, at the Melbourne Showgrounds. The following year, it moved to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, where it remained until at least 2022. The first PAX South was held in San Antonio, Texas, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center on January 23–25, 2015. It set a PAX record for highest attendance for an inaugural year. But the event saw little growth in later years, and was cancelled in October 2021.

From 2011 until 2020, Penny Arcade held PAX Dev, an annual event meant to allow the game developer community to "speak freely and focus entirely on their trade". Unlike other game developer events like GDC, PAX Dev did not allow press. 750 people attended in 2011. At PAX South 2017, Penny Arcade and ReedPop announced that a new event type, PAX Unplugged, would be held on November 17–19, 2017, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. The event focused on tabletop games, a type that was only incidental in other PAXes.

PAX was originally known as the "Penny Arcade Expo", but quickly became known by its acronym "PAX". Seattle's PAX was renamed PAX Prime in 2010 and PAX West in 2015.

Each PAX features an event called the "Omegathon", a festival long tournament consisting of a group of randomly selected attendees competing in a game bracket for a grand prize (which has varied from a large game bundle, to a trip to Japan, to a trip to any PAX in the world). The final round of the Omegathon makes up part of the closing ceremonies of PAX. Past games for the final round of the Omegathon have included Tetris, Pong, Halo 3, and skee ball.

Early PAXes were largely run by a large group of volunteers, which the show calls "Enforcers". Now a paid role, most Enforcers are still not professional conference organizers or temps, but rather selected from an application available to attendees on the PAX website.