New Experiences: PAX West 2024, the Black Lotus and the Seattle Convention Center Summit

All the way back in the heady days of 1998, two artists (Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik) decided to create a comic strip in the new medium known as the "Internet" and named it "Penny Arcade". It was a webcomic about video games and video game culture and it became quite successful. So much so that the two authors decided that, in addition to the webcomic, they also wanted to create a convention solely dedicated to video games and video game culture and so in 2004 they hosted in Bellevue (a suburb of Seattle) the first "Penny Arcade Expo" or PAX.

That event grew and grew and grew and now it is massive. So much so that it spawned other PAXes that happen at different times of the year in different cities and even abroad. To distinguish from their successors, the original one was renamed "PAX West" and this year it happened on Labor Day weekend, from August 30th to September 2nd. And, after hearing about it for a long time, I finally attended the convention.

I spent the entire Monday at PAX and it very much did not disappoint. Despite having started as a video game convention, now it includes all kinds of games: video games, computer games, tabletop games, anything that seems related to games. It also showcases movies, comics, cosplaying and pop culture in general. All of that together makes for a massive dose of contemporary culture, hence why some people pay extra so they can attend all four days of the convention. I only had a day, but it was a good amount for me: I'm not a super big fan of computer games and my days of playing Magic: The Gathering are long gone. Some highlights for me were a keynote about developing video games independently, the very sophisticated game studios booths (notice that PAX forbids booth babes explicitly), the exquisite dice being sold in the RPG booths section, and too much more stuff that it is just too many to count or talk about.

I must mention one more incredible thing about my visit to PAX. As I said, I used to play Magic: The Gathering and as such I had always heard about the legendary Black Lotus card, a card which basically allows you to win the game outright. Those cards were published when the game was first launched and quickly the publishers realized that it was a mistake, so very few were actually published and now they are extremely rare. At a Magic: The Gathering card sales booth there were two available, in different states of conservation. I asked the salesperson (a very nice gentleman) if I could take a picture of it. He said that, not only that, I could even hold it. So he took it out of its reinforced glass case and passed it to me.

And, with that, I was holding (very carefully) a card with a price of 18,000 dollars.

Finally, another cool experience was getting to know the brand new building that is part of the Seattle Convention Center, named "Summit". It is a huge new construction with six floors of lots and lots of convention space, theaters, keynote rooms and more. From the outside it just looks like another glass cube, but inside it is beautiful, especially with the big open space where the escalators are located. I was very curious to get to know it inside, and it is a great new space for all kinds of events in Seattle. And, to give you an idea about the current size of PAX, not only that building was fully taken, the other buildings of the convention center were fully taken as well. It was a great time for me there and I could not have been happier about finally getting to know PAX by myself.