The content itself is imprecise - the greatest danger Gabriel's characters are likely to face is literally drowning in their platinum wealth - but it is entirely true that during PAX East, when a DVD of The Dungeon Masters went missing for a panel, my cohort did create a new panel on the spot and then operate said panel for its duration. To the extent that one man can be proud of another man without shaming the other, I am incredibly proud of him.
Proudmax; pride which abuts against the theoretical limits of pride.
Our theory regarding PAX is that it is something that happens when we get enough of you together, quite on its own, and it is our task to construct an ecosystem around you that does not impinge on that culture's inherent virtues. When they had us down at GDC for that Ambassador Award thing, what I told them (when I was thrust before a microphone in abject terror) was that the basis for our work is the idea that the experiences that games create form the basis of a coherent culture - that the bank of shared experiences, simulated but no less real, coalesce into a collective memory.
I say things like this for two reasons. One, it's vitally important to me that people think I'm smart. But more importantly - well, maybe not more importantly, as important perhaps - that is the world I want to live in. Even if we have to make that world with our bare Goddamned hands for three days, to reclaim it from the Earth, it will be so.
The fear that PAX was something that would attenuate from one coast to another was real, but also dumb. We wondered if the show we have there was the result of it being "old growth" by this time, an established creature. But PAX felt like this even in its first year, before it was a "thing," its shape was already present. We call it PAX East to distinguish it from the other one, it helps to make discussions about them possible, but I've been to every one of them and I can tell you: this was just PAX. Whatever entity you create when you attend, and when you play, was present in the same unaltered form we discerned years ago. It is our task to honor it.
We were asked many times what's Next for Penny Arcade, or PAX, and the answer is straightforward: This, but better. We're going to get this show on an anvil and pound it until its strength and glory are manifest. We have absorbed every suggestion, every tweet, and every thread - know that nothing has escaped us. When we return in one year's time, be ready.
(CW)TB out.
