I’m standing here in the Melbourne Exhibition Centre surrounded by tens of thousands of like-minded people.
This place is blaring on a Saturday morning; the boomy bass of the Just Dance 2015 booth, the constant chattering match commentary from the Bethesda Battlecry booth. Off in the distance I can hear frantic yelling from the Wargaming stage. A man is throwing shirts and lanyards into the audience.
Speaking of Battlecry, I’m writing this on my phone while I’m in the queue to play it. Take a look:
It’s a new free to play game that’s coming next year. Australia & NZ is the first region to get a beta for this game, which is nice.
This place is kind of disconnected from time and place; it’s 11:30am right now, but it could be 8pm, or 3am. When you’re on the exhibition floor, you have no idea.
You will also queue a lot here, and that makes time pass in strange ways. You’ll spend half an hour on your phone, bored out of your skull, in order to play a new game frantically for 5-10 minutes.
You want hype? Come here.
I’m pretty relaxed though — we had our panel yesterday, and so now I have the whole weekend to just enjoy the show and soak up some stuff.
Of course, the other facet of PAX is the panel and talks. So far I’ve seen a few and they are a very different experience. Much more chilled, and you can sit, relax and take in the opinions of smart people, or watch some Omeganauts play (the conference-wide game tournament).
You want knowledge? Go there.
If you wander outside, you’ll find cosplayers hanging out on the lawn outside the centre. Taking photos, chatting to each other, comparing costumes.
You want community? It’s there. It’s all over the place.
Anyway, I gotta go. We just got ushered into a room for a Battlecry orientation.
Yeah, that’s a thing.