PAX Button Trading Game

The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is an annual gamer festival held in Washington state, USA. PAX was created by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the Penny Arcadewebcomic, because they wanted to attend a show that gave equal attention to console gamers, computer gamers, and tabletop gamers. No such show existed, so PAX was born.

Created in 2004, PAX has nearly doubled in size each successive year and has been hailed as a weekend-long celebration of gamer culture. Defining characteristics include an insider keynote speech, game-inspired concerts, panels on game industry topics, exhibitor booths, after-hours parties, tournaments, and freeplay areas. (thanks Wikipedia for this burst of content)

Furthermore, for this years show, they have decided to use buttons for identification.  Here’s an exerpt from the forum:

Alright, here’s the idea guys. We need a form of identification for forumers at PAX. As Moe has suggested, custom made buttons with our name/avatar or whatever would be a great option, but to extend this idea and make it more Penny Arcade-ish I suggest that each get a bunch of buttons and trade one for one when we meet each other. Thus making it a game of “gotta catch them all”.

They continue:

Where do I get buttons from?:

PureButtons – Pure Win!
When purchasing, use coupon code “Winter0708” for 15% off!

* Custom 1″ button 50-pack: $10.00
* Custom 1.25″ button 50-pack: $12.50
* Custom 1.5″ button 50-pack: $14.00 *Most preferred size among Arcadians.
* Custom 2.25″ button 50-pack: $21.00

We thought this was pretty cool, a button trading game. It makes us reminiscent of pogs. The PAX Buttoneers are all about custom buttons, but all of our products are all excellent candidates for trade show giveaways.

Last Modified: July 30th, 2008