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Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Tech Watch
Boston counts down to PAX East influx of 60,000 gamers
By Rodney H. Brown
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When the Penny Arcade Expo lands for the first time in Boston on March 26 it will offer one thing that no game development company in New England can resist — the chance to get their offerings in front of up to 60,000 game-crazed self-professed nerds and geeks.
PAX East, the Seattle-based gamer convention’s first foray beyond the Pacific Northwest, will be the moment for New England’s game industry to shine, experts said, and some companies are rolling the dice that the show will get them enough exposure to offset the cost in time and money to display.
One of those smaller companies is Fire Hose Games of Cambridge. President and “fire chief” Eitan Glinert remarked that showing off a game for a large studio isn’t a make-or-break event, but it could be for his company. “For us this is going to be the first time showing off our game on a national scale,” Glinert said. “We are going to try to get fans for a game they have never heard of and know nothing about, and I think that we are up to the challenge.”
But even if he weren’t showing off a game at PAX East, Glinert said he and all his staff would still attend. “I’ll tell you right now, if for some reason we weren’t showing stuff, we would be there the entire time,” he said.
On the opposite end of the size spectrum is Turbine Inc. of Westwood. According to Turbine spokesman Adam Mersky, PAX East is a chance to connect with those attendees already playing its massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as “Lord of the Rings Online” and “Dungeons & Dragons Online.”
“This is the only time when we can get to get in front of lots of players,” Mersky said.
Turbine will have a 1,000-square-foot pavilion on the show floor and nearly 300 of the company’s 320 Westwood employees will be at the booth at some point over the three-day show. Mersky said that Turbine wants to make sure that it pulls out all the stops at a convention of gamers in its own back yard. “This is really the center, the core of gaming culture, and these people are very influential,” Mersky said.
Pat Moscaritolo, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that PAX East is expected to bring between $16 million and $19 million into the local economy. That compares to $19 million to $22 million each year from the International Seafood Show and the $20 million to $25 million from the Yankee Dental conference.
“It packs a huge wallop,” Moscaritolo said.
PAX East has signed a three-year deal that will bring the largest collection of gamers and game industry people in North America back to Boston’s Hynes Auditorium in March of 2011 and 2012, according to president of Penny Arcade Inc. and show director Robert Khoo, who said a plan to come east was in the works almost since the first show in 2004.
“Trust me, we were thinking about it since 2005,” Khoo said. “But it was such a logistical challenge to try to bring it there. It’s hard enough to do it in your own back yard.”
The city of Boston is wasting no time making sure that those 60,000 attendees know Boston can be a hub of gaming. According to Susan Elsbree, spokeswoman for the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the city is hoping to use Pax East to promote Boston’s new “Innovation District” as a prime location for digital media and video game companies.
Jason Schupbach, creative economy industry director for the state of Massachusetts, has helped Khoo with introductions and meetings once they made the decision to come to Boston, but the credit for that decision lays in the hands of the gaming community itself, he said.
“They made the decision based on going to a lot of community events,” Schupbach said. “They were just blown away by the communications and the community here.”
For Scott Macmillan, founder of the three-man studio Macguffin Games, the real exciting community activity is happening among the small, independent game companies like his own, and that is why PAX East will feature the Boston Independent Showcase. Like the PAX 10 in the Seattle conference, the Boston Showcase will feature independent games chosen from a crowd of submissions to the Penny Arcade staff. Macmillan’s game, as it turns out, didn’t make the cut.
“I have actually entered into it and they didn’t accept it, which is fair because I don’t think ours is developed enough,” he said. But that doesn’t mean he won’t be showing of the game called “All Heroes Die” at the show.
“We are going to be exhibiting on the floor, and that is courtesy of the MIT Gambit lab,” Macmillan said.
Glinert, like Mersky and Macmillan, is just hoping to connect with as many gamers as possible over the three-day show.
“From a company standpoint the best thing we can get out of PAX East is, we get a bunch of people playing our game,” he said. “I don’t think anyone really knows who we are outside of Boston.” But he hopes that will change and make the work worthwhile.
“We’ve been busting our ass on this thing for a year now.”
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