On Friday we went to PAX. Andrew went for the first time last year and said he thought I would enjoy it. This year he straight out bought me a ticket. The show was a stark contrast to NVScene. The convention center teemed with people and long lines snaked through hallways and out from doors. The air conditioning could not compete and rooms became stuffy and sometimes stinky. The overall culture looked like what would happen if Game Stop and Hot Topic collided in the mall, but all types of people were present and most had handhelds of some sort to keep them occupied in the long lines or to play while lounging. The overwhelming sense, which I enjoyed very much, was of play and of being yourself.

Importantly, industry is secluded to one area and not allowed to dictate the event. Attendees can visit the booths, but the show is player-run and it makes all the difference. I'm still thinking about the effect this has, about how business people and marketing people objectify customers so as to exploit them, how this tactic fails, and how they in turn fail to see that the tactics have failed. All of us become cynical. But when the predators are relegated to their corner, the environment becomes much more content-filled and fruitful. I think the expo is a great model for how industry can interact with an audience, where the audience has the choice to approach a company for information but is not forced to endure marketing crap as a condition of attendence.

I'd never seen Mike or Jerry and was amazed to find them uneasy idols but also glad for their humility and for their commitment to their convictions. During Q&As they welcomed whimsy (whole crowd experiments such as "Can you really hear a thousand people blinking simultaneously?") and an incredible number of gifts from fans. All the while, they were welcoming, witty, and completely serious.

I attended a number of panels, most having to do with women and gaming and politics and gaming. I was impressed by the maturity of the panelists' viewpoints, even if some panelists were smart and youthful more than wise. I learned a few things, too. By the end, I felt I understood better how video gaming evolved as it did. I had been confused by the fact that I grew up playing video games but at some point found the most popular games unappealing either because of the awful sexism or because they assumed an amount of spare time that employed adults just don't have. After the talks, I realized a couple of things.

First, games have changed. At some point the main marketing focus shifted to children or men, both of whom can have a lot of time. It was a mistake by the industry that alienated a lot of people. But now the industry wants that broader audience and is willing to invest in it.

Second, the stigma of being a gamer is still strong, and that stigma serves a protective function that impedes the social evolution of the industry. For as much as mainstream culture has embraced being "geeky," it's still too nerdy in mainstream culture to be a gamer. For example, one of my coworkers called me a nerd when I said I was going to PAX. Then she added, tentatively, "Will there be, like, people in costumes?" She laughed like she was joking, but she's not really. (She could've been, like, "Neat!") I thought, You're a nerd, you're just a different type of nerd, a nerd higher in the hierarchy of what is mainstream acceptable, sure, but still a nerd. And who decides the mainstream? The same people who shoved you into lockers when you were an awkward kid interested in something other than sports? Same old shit. (How old am I? Is this a John Hughes film?) Bottom line: Today, if you are an adult and you say you really like to play tabletop or video games, people will give you a strange look. People don't even try video games because of this.

The Wii is changing things, certainly. This is where the protective function of the stigma is revealed: So-called hardcore gamers are threatened by industry's attempt to woo a broader audience. Aha! So you have a domain built specifically for men who can't compete in the mainstream. And because the domain is outside of mainstream participation it's not subject to the same social pressures, such as the pressure to treat women as people and to provide equal access and display. In this domain, men who could not be aggressive toward women in public do so with abandon and without public witness to check them. Society leaves it alone, and the people in this scene actively discourage entry by annihilating newcomers who try to play with them. But gaming is changing anyway. On the player side, women are gaining in numbers and forming communities as the video game industry swells to the size of the movie industry.The industry is changing because it wants a broader audience, sure, but also because its constituency (developers and players) is aging and becoming more diverse, and they want games that interest them and that they can play intermittently and with their kids.

We attended all three days of PAX, and at the end of it we were exhausted just from being around so many people. We stayed for the final round of the Omegathon, watching the competition on the big screen. It was fun to be in the crowd as it cheered and ahhed in unison, to be one of thousands feeling the same thing moment to moment from the comfort of being ourselves.