My PAX experience: The Destructoid Edition.

Hey Dtoiders. It's been a while since I've posted blogs on Destructoid. I could've been lazy and copy and pasted what I had posted on my Wordpress blog, but I really didn't want to be shunned by community users for just doing a bunch of copypasta on this site. Plus I felt that the Dtoid experience needs to be shared on the site it's based on. I do worry about my quality of my blogs, and I want to make sure they're as good to you as they are to me. But anyway.

I'll just limit this to the Destructoid-related stuff, but I did see a bunch of various panels about games and games writers, including Giant Bomb and Idle Thumbs (RIP). I bumped into various games writers and such and that itself was pretty cool. And like we all did, I have a BigMcLargeHuge pile of swag to post on YouTube later. But now onto the special Dtoid edition of my PAX 2010 recap.

So on Saturday, I went to the Destructoid Live panel. While I may not be into what's hip and cool about the site, I do try to keep myself familiar with everything, and it was funny to see a bunch of snark and humor from the panelists, including Jim Sterling. After there being a Deadly Premonition-related contest with two users from the site (I forgot their names, sorry!), it was time for the huge-ass photo opportunity with all the random Dtoiders. Despite we tried the stairwell like last year, an Enforcer had to be a party pooper, but it did not dissuade us! We just went outside and did our chanting of "Also, Cocks" all bundled up outside.

Later that night, I went to the Destructoid meetup at the Chapel bar, and had one drink. Unfortunately I'm a lightweight when it comes to that stuff, so that one drink was all I needed to be all tipsy. But the visit was worth it. Why? Because I got to meet Elsa in person. While considered one of the oldest Dtoiders on the site, she and I have known each other longer than that, way back in the Sony GAP days. So to me, this was a big treat because had I not known her, I probably would not be blogging at this site today.

I also met some of the Dtoid staff and other users, which unfortunately I didn't remember any names (again, sorry!). And we ended up doing this meetup shindig thing again the following day at Rock Bottom, which was a classier place this time. It was really cool to meet with Dtoid staffers like Hamza and Niero, and meet those two guys who did the DP contest thing (again, sorry! My memory is horrible. I'm lucky to remember my own name sometimes!). Unfortunately I didn't stay long at the Sunday meetup as my hotel was far away from downtown and I had to get ready to pack to leave Monday morning.

It was great meeting a bunch of dudes, and especially trying to understand things from an outsider's perspective (Jonathan Holmes' "Sundays with Sagat," in particular), and of course having something to do when PAX was winding down.

At Dtoid Live on Saturday, I had asked something to the effect of "Should I leave my brain at the door [when reading this site]?" My question sounded weird, but it made sense to me. My problem with gaming sites is that I basically look at it as all "serious business." And that, obviously, is not what Destructoid is about. It's more of a lighthearted take on the gaming world at large, and it really made me look at the site in a new way than I did before, which I think is important. When they had announced that they were expanding community features, including the addition of groups further cements this fact the fact that it's more about gamers than it is trying to be the next Gamasutra. While I am still technically an outsider to this community, I am trying my damnedest to understand and "fit in" with this, without making my writing being all serious in tone. I'd suggest an acronym for such a term: "STFU and just have fun writing about games." But then I realized the acronym it would be (STFUAJHFWAG) doesn't have the same ring as STFUAJPG, so I'm putting the kibosh on that idea.

Before I finish this blog, I will leave you with a video of Mr. Destructoid fighting a guy in a Cardboard Tube Samurai cosplay. Well, taking pictures with a guy in a CTS costume anyway. It's an amusing closer to a blog that's mostly words.