Had an exhausting and enriching time at this year's Penny Arcade Expo, hanging out with 40,000 (!) of my best friends ever at the Seattle convention center. I attended panels on PR and community, the social component of gaming, blogs and podcasts as the new face of journalism, and the highs and lows of game marketing. I also got to meet such luminaries as Jerry "Tycho" Holkins of Penny Arcade, Jonathan Coulton, the cast of the Weekly Geek podcast, Mark Jessup of Wizards of the Coast, and Brendan Ferguson of Telltale Games.
Noah Ward (Eve Online), Ilja Rotelli (Wizards of the Coast), and John Porcaro (Microsoft Xbox) discuss the nuances of John Gabriel's Greater Internet F***wad Theory at the Social Component of Gaming Today panel.
Friend of the blog Jonathan Coulton entertains his audience (5,000 strong) with funny and melancholy songs about hopeful cyborgs, self-hating squids, fractal geometry, and zombies.
The exhibitor hall. Again: 40,000 people, yet it never felt like it was too big or too crowded. The organizers did an amazing job.
Gamers sing karaoke in hopes of winning a PlayStation. I unwisely entered the fray with an...interesting rendition of Motorhead's "Ace Of Spades".
To salvage my pride I headed to the "classic section" of videogames at the ArenaNet party to play my old friend Robotron: 2084.