PAX Prime 2011

70,000 gamers, hundreds of games, and no parking. We had a great time visiting with fans of vintage games and all the folks who stopped by our booth
Here’s what our booth looked like:

Our exhibit about “The History of Adventure Games” traced adventure games from the very first, Colossal Cave Adventure, through the days of text adventures dominated by Infocom, the rise of graphical adventures with Sierra and LucasArts, the ending of major adventure series like Gabriel Knight and Monkey Island, and the emergence of new adventure games in episodic format. We had three playable games: King’s Quest 1, The Curse of Monkey Island, and Back to the Future (Telltale’s episodic version), plus some action games on large TVs to engage the visitors.

We’ve put pictures of the exhibit and a lot of the label text up on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalgamemuseum/sets/72157627608905156/de… – not quite as good as being there, but still fun. Everyone loved the mailbox:

Museums aren’t just about the past, and we saw PAX Prime as an example of game history in the making. We’re preserving a “snapshot” of PAX by collecting and archiving as many things as possible that were being give out. We’ve got over 125 buttons, a couple of dozen t-shirts, a book, piles of literature, 2 foam grenades (one pink, one green), a squishy chicken, a water bottle, a zombie bride and groom, and a model of Assault from Monday Night Combat. Here’s some of the pile:

All of which is why we started the Adopt-A-Game program to raise funds for conservation supplies.
We had good response – in fact, people started adopting games even before PAX opened! All our artifacts – game boxes, game media, t-shirts, arcade games – everything – will be safely housed in archival materials. The $20 from each game adoption goes to fund this. Check out the program on the Adopt-A-Game page and adopt your favorite game. Makes a great gift for that special gamer in your life!