MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1234839
Pax East 2020 The Booths, The Games, The Parties ─Everything You Need To Know About Pax East. By Thomas Bender • Photography By Claudia Paredes Every year, MacDirectory travels to Boston to attend the Penny Arcade Exposition at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center—or PAX East at the BCEC, as it is more colloquially known. This year's expo was shockingly successful and familiar despite the growing threat of the coronavirus at the end of February. The global health fears resulted in several large companies backing out of the expo at the last minute. Especially for companies with developers flying in from Asia and around the globe, the show presented too much of a health concern, while other companies exercised an abundance of caution. Despite several of the biggest names not being present on the floor, the Expo hall was still packed to the brim with exhibitor booths, tabletop games, free play areas, and any sort of merchant who sold games or gaming-adjacent products. Attendance was still robust, with crowded aisles and long lines for food throughout the weekend, with only the faintest extra legroom that returning fans may have noticed. In general, the abundance of volunteers ("Enforcers"), variety of content (from panels to demos for indies and mega-corporations alike), and overall compassion of the gaming community created one of the smoothest and friendlies conventions you're likely to find—not that it doesn't come with its healthy dose of competition, of course. Child's Play PAX has established itself as such a dominant player in the convention world (with at least five annual shows around the globe each year) that it's easy to forget its humble beginnings as an offshoot of the Penny Arcade website. It's also easy to take for granted the official charity of PAX, another offshoot of the Penny Arcade website called Child's Play. The Child's Play charity, much like the expo, has grown from an annual holiday fundraiser to a full-time charity benefiting over 180 hospitals worldwide. Child's Play focuses on putting video games and entertainment in Children's Hospitals to give children receiving treatment access to a small piece of fun and respite in what are otherwise extremely challenging times. MacDirectory was able to learn about Child's Play first-hand at the Gamers Give Back Mixer, which invited people involved with the charity and its patrons to mingle in the Microsoft offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The intimate affair was a great opportunity to learn how the charity has grown and why its members continue to give. Such is the generosity of its gamers that Child's Play now provides grants for dedicated full-time employees at the hospital to play alongside the children and guide them through the gaming experience, but only if they want. This power of choice was a recurring theme among Child's Play supporters. When a kid is in a hospital, there typically isn't a lot of choice; the experience is mostly being told what to do, or what is going to be done to you, by a litany of adults. Having