ZEN ALBATROSS

From webcomic to charity to convention, Jerry Holkins & Mike Krahulik’s Penny Arcade empire has quickly become one of the most successful properties in the videogaming world. So when the duo approached NYC filmmaking troupe 2 Player Productions (creators of the soon-to-be-released chiptune documentary, Reformat The Planet) and asked them to shoot a web series and document PA’s yearly gaming mega-event, the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, they jumped on a plane, moved to Portland and haven’t looked back.  With PAX 2010 just weeks away from arriving at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, the PAX 2009 DVD offers a fond look back at last year’s Expo, ensuring that we’re all sufficiently pumped when PAX’s euphoric typhoon of live music, games and events hits Seattle once more in September.

Click through to Original Sound Version to see how the 2 Player crew captured one of the most exciting videogaming events on Earth.

[The punk rock spirit is alive and well at Babycastles, NYC’s only indie games arcade. Check out my coverage of their latest gallery opening party on Motherboard]

In New York City, there’s a new arcade in town. But don’t expect to find anything you could purchase at your local Gamestop here. Instead, the homemade titles that fill the ramshackle cabinets of this musty basement just off the L train’s Halsey stop are part of an underground movement that’s re-invigorating interest in grassroots game development by taking to heart a credo strikingly similar to that of the early punk rock scene.

The place is Silent Barn, an active DIY music venue in Ridgewood, Queens that has quickly become an unlikely hub of videogame counterculture through Babycastles, a curated gallery of independently developed games from developers around the world. Normally a faceless exchange operating through all manner of internet message boards, blogs and IRC channels, Babycastles co-founders Syed Salahuddin, Kunal Gupta and Arthur Ward aim to bring the indie games community back into meatspace. And they’re doing it the only way they know how to: By throwing raucous parties with live music and huge crowds of gaming enthusiasts button-mashing away on arcade cabinets lovingly crafted from planks of wood, painted styrofoam and whatever else was lying around that day.

[Read more on Motherboard]

A sobering look at how press fanaticism is killing videogame journalism’s credibility.

Today at QuakeCon, developers speaking on a “Building Blockbusters” panel took issue with “stone-faced” games journalists at product demos, as if the absence of emotional displays in a journalist is somehow a bad thing. Sports journalists never cheer during ballgames — so why should we?

I think it’s really important that anyone involved in videogame journalism read the above article by AJ Glasser and then have a good think about their profession and what it means to them. No, Glasser isn’t commenting on ‘bias’ or brand loyalty or other such things that often trigger flamewars in the comments section of your favorite gaming blog. Instead he focuses on a deeper and even more disturbing phenomenon: A self-destructive cycle of unprofessionalism that encourages and even rewards fanaticism amongst members of the press. Highly recommended read.

(via GJAIF)