My first Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) was in 2008. I had just met some of my Seattle guildies earlier in the year, and they talked about this video game convention that I should check out. At the time I was a game player but not really a member of the game community. I didn’t really know about this Penny Arcade comic thing, but I figured.. why not? I drove to Seattle, ambled up to the ticket booth on the Sunday morning and got a day pass, and had a lot of fun wandering around the show floor for a few hours.
My, how times have changed.
My feelings about Penny Arcade and the two fellows behind the property are.. complicated. On the one hand, they’re pretty good at getting to the heart of game players sometimes. They’ve picked fights with the game industry on behalf of the little guys, created a great charity in Child’s Play, and popularized John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory which is pretty fundamental internet sociology. They’ve given the spotlight to some pretty talented folks, too, like journalist Ben Kuchera and the Extra Credits gang.
On the other hand, the PA guys have said a lot of horrible, hateful crap. Probably the most famous is of course the “dickwolves” incident, where PA founder Mike Krahulik responded to concerns about a panel featuring a rape joke by mocking trigger warnings, selling a t-shirt that repeated the joke, and declaring on Twitter that it “feels pretty good to be actively encouraging rape culture”. Yeah. Ponder that shit. As if that wasn’t enough, earlier this year the PA guys also actively promoted and helped fund a hentai rape-based collectible card game. It’s pretty clear to me that Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins as people and artists don’t want women in their game zone.
So then we come to PAX itself. I’ve gone every year since that first one in 2008, which makes this.. my fifth PAX! And if we can put aside the fact that its founders are buttheads, PAX itself is amazing. (If you’ve never been before, read this wonderful article about it from last year.) I’d estimate that at least 40% of the attendees now are female. Booth bunnies aren’t allowed on the convention floor, which makes for a very pleasant environment. PAX Enforcers (the volunteer guides and security) include a lot of women and are very easy to find if you should need one.
The result of this inclusion is that at PAX I feel I can relax and just be a game enthusiast like everyone else. There are costumes and line parties and Nintendo DS throwdowns with strangers. There are event parties where you get to meet your fellow players and developers, and movies that run late into the night. All games are there, from Magic to D&D to SpaceChem to next year’s multi-million dollar title. I have friends that I pretty much only see at PAX every year. You know what it’s like if you’ve ever been to a hobby convention — that warm feeling of everyone being there and on the same page because you all love the same thing.
But the fact remains that it is the Penny Arcade Expo, even if the Expo is the important bit for me. Every year I feel more and more conflicted about giving the Penny Arcade machine my money. Is 48 hours of nerd community bliss worth the teeth gritting whenever Mike Krahulik (in particular) says something horrible and depressing? Can I continute to pretend that PAX welcomes women in gaming while Penny Arcade clearly doesn’t care for them? After this year.. I don’t know.
Now, though, is the time to pack all my nerd shirts and update my contacts list and dig out a wall charger for every mobile device I own. Tomorrow I am off to Seattle for PAX Prime 2012, to be with friends I haven’t seen in ages and rush around between panels and go to parties (RIFT party people I will see you there!) and this year for the first time host a live podcast from my hotel room. I will have fun with people who like some of the same things I like.
Let us eat, drink, and game, for next week we ponder our line in the sand.
PS: Going to PAX Prime? Wanna hang out? Email me at liore@lioreblog.com or follow me on Twitter and we should meet up!
Herding Cats is the blog of Liore, known in the real world as Jessica Cook. She writes mostly about MMOs and RPGs, and believes in 
“Is 48 hours of nerd community bliss worth the teeth gritting whenever Mike Krahulik (in particular) says something horrible and depressing? ”
Yes, because while you’re giving the PA guys a few bucks, sure, you’re also spreading your own values and opinions to the other attendees.
Plus seeing friends.These days we don’t see friends often enough and the older we get, the less frequently these opportunities open up. So my opinion is the ends justify the means, in this case.
Not that you asked. But I’m a busybody. :)
pasmith´s last post: Diablo 3 Redux
Not a busybody, a commenter! And I appreciate the comment. :) You’re totally right about the opportunity to be with friends trumping a lot of BS.
Hmmmmmmm.
I know I’ve been having similar thoughts, but I think I still come down on the “might as well still go” side of things. It certainly gets harder every time there is more bullshit, and I can completely sympathize with people who decide that PAX is no longer for them. Whenever I’ve been (and I think my first year was 2008, too!), I’ve felt like the actual vibe was plenty inclusive. I recognize that I am not as tuned in to things as others, but it has overall been a wildly positive experience for me once I’m actually there.
This year’s round of panels lacking any women-focused panels frustrates me (and I know it does you, too), since my wife and I have made a point of being to at least one each year they’ve been offered, but there are a number of LGBT-aware panels, which I think is a good sign. I’m hoping that it’s part of a larger trend towards non-asshattery, but sometimes it feels like it’s only a matter of time before Mike says something stupid again.
Either way, I recognize the struggle that is PAX, and I really wish people would make it easier to live in a world where I didn’t have to hold my nose when I pay for things that I like!
Ellyndrial´s last post: Raiding, Retirement and the Queen of England
I totally feel the same way! I can’t help thinking that this might be my last PAX, even though I do always have fun. I actually considered not going for a while this year, even after buying the passes, especially after the whole “Wife Aggro” panel fiasco. And I am really disappointed about the lack of women focused panels since that has been one of my favorite parts of PAX in the past few years, even if I usually leave the panels with a mild sense of dissatisfaction (probably I just wanted more yelling to happen…) I am really glad that there are a number of LGBT focused panels, but… I don’t know. I’m starting to think it might be time to move on to other conventions (http://www.geekgirlcon.com/).
I actually miss the feeling I had at my first PAX, when I think I spent the entire weekend basking in the glow if being with “my people”. I felt like the whole thing was a celebration of gaming and nerdiness. I don’t think PAX has changed, it’s more likely me that’s changed (my eyes have been opened, so to speak), but I still miss that feeling!
RIFT PARTY THOUGH!!
I keep meaning to make it to Geek Girl Con, but last year it was over Canadian Thanksgiving, and this year it was too close to PAX for me to manage. It is *definitely* at the top of my list for next year, though!
See you soon! :)
The “problem” here is that the PA guys are more available and honest with their fans than most other companies. They stumbled into a controversy, didn’t take it seriously and did what comedic people do: they made a joke out of it. To people who take the controversy seriously, this was a terrible response. But, you only really know about this controversy because the PA guys are readily accessible. I think this shows part of the danger of the “social media” type of availability; worse, it demonstrates to people who have commercial interests why it’s not a good idea to be too open. How do you know there aren’t actual rape apologists at Blizzard or Trion and that your subscription to WoW or RIFT isn’t/wasn’t supporting them? You don’t. One reason is because they have a lot more control over their “corporate message”. (Caveat: I don’t know if there is anyone at these companies that are rape apologists, I used these companies as examples since Liore has written about them on this blog.)
Consider this: even before they made the dickwolves joke they probably didn’t feel rape culture is a serious problem, so going to PAX would still be supporting them. This is a perfect example of the cliché “ignorance is bliss”. Again, you don’t know how many other companies you support that share their feelings, but haven’t made them public.
I feel the question comes down to this: Do you feel accepted at PAX? Do you feel that any threat to you, including a threat because you are female, would be addressed by the convention organizers and security? Is it more important to support a conference that makes the (what should be common sense, but sadly isn’t common) decision to ban “booth bunnies” than to punish a conference that has a panel entitled “wife aggro”? If the answers to these questions are “no”, then it’s time to definitely give PAX a pass. But, I think demanding some sort of ideological purity that matches your world view from every organization that you give money to is only going to end up leaving you frustrated and disappointed. Worse, I think this attitude harms actual conversations that try to begin to address the very real problems underlying these attitudes.
Brian ‘Psychochild’ Green´s last post: I’m not dead, merely tired
“But, I think demanding some sort of ideological purity that matches your world view from every organization that you give money to is only going to end up leaving you frustrated and disappointed.”
You know what makes me a little more than frustrated and disappointed? Being raped. Also, people who makes jokes about how funny rape is. I’m already angry, frustrated, disappointed, enraged, saddened, the whole psychological spectrum of normal responses, just from the reality of the thing. Demanding that people that ask for my support not make light of an epidemic of violence in our society is not asking too much.
And I can’t speak for Liore, but I do try to only give my money to companies that do good things. When people make money by doing bad things, I try not to give them any more money. I hope that’s not a problem for you.
PS: Undermining activism and promoting quietism by suggesting that the entire world sucks and you’re just going to depress yourself if you try to stand up for what you believe in sorta supports the people doing the bad things.
The Penny Arcade issue wasn’t about rape, it was about rape culture. One can be firmly against rape but not accept the existence of rape culture. It was the PA guys not accepting that others felt they were refusing to accept the premise of, and therefore perpetuating, rape culture that has caused the outcry.
The problem here, that I suspect your incendiary reply is trying to provoke, is that some people are trying to equate a rejection of the concept of rape culture as an acceptance of rape. It is not; the equivalence is a logical trap intended to degrade opponents of a point of view with an deeply and morally offensive label. Your angry, indirect accusations of me supporting rapists do nothing to help solve the problem. In fact, it makes it worse because then when I try to talk to people about feminist issues, people become afraid to even discuss the issues for fear of being accused of supporting rape.
Look, if you want to get angry, then your anger should be directed at Liore who actually gave money to the PA organization to go to PAX. However, I think that anger is misplaced, as was the soul searching, because while the PA guys might have said some (I’d like to think unintentionally) hurtful things, PAX itself remains an fairly inclusive, supportive, an safe space. PAX is more than the PA guys, it’s an organization made up of a lot of people who may not agree with them. Maybe it’s changed; I haven’t been to PAX in quite a few years now, myself.
Brian ‘Psychochild’ Green´s last post: I’m not dead, merely tired