It’s been a week since PAX West! It was an amazing time showing off Bleed 2, and the response has been even more positive than I’d hoped for! Most people who played seemed to really enjoy it, and several large websites have even been kind enough to write about the game, including IGN, Destructoid and IndieGames.com. Woohoo! (EDIT: Now Hardcore Gamer too, yay!!)
I thought I’d record some thoughts from exhibiting at PAX while they’re still fresh in my head. Mostly, it’ll be answers to the questions I was asking everyone before I went, in case others want them answered too. Please keep in mind I’m just some rando first-time PAX exhibitor, so none of this is necessarily right — it’s just my perspective, along with some insights from other developers who I spoke to!
I’ll pepper in shots from the show to break up the text, plus at least one pie chart. You can’t do these kinds of things without pie charts.
How Much Does It Cost?
Short answer: a lot! The MEGABOOTH estimates teams set aside $3-6,000 USD to exhibit (not including travel costs) and I found that to be accurate — I made it work for about $4,250 USD. That includes things like the rental of the booth space (I had a 10×10 booth, about $1,900 alone) and signage/merch (a standing banner, 1,000 postcards and 1,000 game keys.)
Other items include equipment rentals — I had padding for the floor (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), electricity, monitors, computers, stands, etc. It all costs money unless you bring it, and it isn’t feasible for me to transport all those across the country (except the signage/merch, which I FedEx’ed over for about $100 CAD.) Add food, flights, hotels, etc, and things start piling up, to the final tune of about $6,750 USD — even worse considering I’m a Canadian (RIP leftover Bleed sales, shout outs to the exchange rate.)
I’ve heard of plenty of ways to cut costs. Stay in a hostel instead of a hotel, arrive the day of set-up and leave the day of tear-down, buy your equipment from local stores and return them after the show… I estimate I could have gotten expenses down to $5,000 USD if I really went nuts, but it was my first PAX and I wanted to make sure I had time to approach it correctly, as well as room to make mistakes.
What Does Being In The MEGABOOTH Add?
Everything. They’re amazing. They help subsidize the cost of the booth space. They help facilitate equipment rentals (I’m not even sure if certain equipment would be available for rent if I wasn’t part of the MEGABOOTH. I also got much of my equipment cheap/free through their sponsors, which definitely wouldn’t have been available to me otherwise.) Even just being in the MEGABOOTH gives you a ton of extra attention and legitimacy — I wasn’t sure what the average convention-goer would think of the MEGABOOTH/indie games in general, but many people told me they were at PAX specifically for those things.
The awesome MEGABOOTH folks also provided indispensable advice, guiding me on arranging my booth optimally and helping to sort out any technical issues that arose (you’ll see my original booth layout, followed by the optimized booth layout further down.) That goes double for the other devs in the MEGABOOTH — not only was everyone amazing to meet, but the general attitude was one of camaraderie and support — tons of folks saved my ass countless times over the weekend and it would have been a disaster without them. Finally, the MEGABOOTH facilitates you meeting industry folks by hosting fun parties and mixers. I feel like my PAX experience would be a shadow of what I experienced if I hadn’t been in the MEGABOOTH.
So Showing At PAX Means Tons Of Press And Sales, Then?
Not exactly. Before my trip, I asked this to a bunch of fellow devs (all previous exhibitors, of games ranging from successful to wildly-successful) and they all seemed to agree that that’s not why you exhibit at PAX, nor what you should expect. I found this to be generally correct — while I was able to arrange a few press appointments beforehand, and fortunate enough to have a couple more big names stop by the booth, press attention made up a very small amount of the PAX experience. Similarly, while sales of the original Bleed saw a bump during the convention, it was about 20 additional sales per day. So don’t get me wrong, it has some impact, and I’m grateful/super happy about any/all coverage I got from the exhibition, but it might not be enough for you to justify the expense alone, and you should be realistic about your expectations there.
Oh. So Why Go?
I got a few answers to this question and they all seem pretty valid! For one, it gets your game in front of thousands of people and lets them know it exists. Two, it’s a great way to meet and make fans — and even for Bleed, a modestly-well-known indie game, I had a handful of different people at the booth every day who were really into the original, which was absolutely incredible! Three, it’s a great way to make connections — I don’t mean schmoozing, hard-sell, what-can-I-get-out-of-you connections (though I’m sure you could approach it that way), I mean genuine connections among like-minded developers and industry professionals! I definitely saw/heard about Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo making the rounds, and I met tons of other developers who were really exciting to talk to — people I can’t wait to follow up with and meet again! Finally, it’s a great way to get tons of playtesting done. I mean, pray your game doesn’t crash, but if you’re attentive and watching what does/doesn’t work, that can be a very valuable experience too.
So It’s A Big Party!
Kinda, but also kinda not. The show goes 8-9 hours every day and while it’s TONS of fun showing your game, it’s also surprisingly hard work. There were only two people manning my booth (myself and my partner) and we barely had time to do anything other than show it off. It’s a bit of a shame, since I had big dreams of going around meeting all my fellow devs on the show floor and trying their games, but the reality is there wasn’t much time, except for possibly just-before and just-after the show floor opened/closed. There’s definitely tons of parties and meet-ups after hours, though, and that’s where you can get that kind of experience if you have the energy and are outgoing enough! I’d recommend trying it if you can, it was a huge part of the experience for me and I’m a pretty introverted person (thankfully my partner is extremely outgoing!)
Any Other Tips?
Don’t take anything for granted if this is your first convention! Resources like Indie BoothCraft are great at giving you an idea of what you’ll need on the floor (like losenges, granola bars, water, extra cables, etc.) Plan your space out and think about how people will be attracted to it and interact with it. Tailor your demo to an exhibition setting if you can. Bring business cards, work on pitching your game a little. Be friendly and helpful. Basically, just do your research and try to be prepared — things will probably go wrong (and plenty did for me!) but I found most could be minimized and worked around thanks to good preparation and support.
Also, don’t be afraid to talk to passerby. I found tons of people were more than happy to jump in and play, they just needed me to offer. Also also, if you’re wondering how much merch to bring: I brought 1,000 postcards and 1,000 game keys for the original Bleed. The game keys were directly handed to almost everyone, and we ran out mid-Sunday. The postcards were left out for people to take if they wished, and we only went through about 500 of them. Ultimately I guess it depends how aggressively you hand out your merch and what their perceived value is! Everyone told me to make buttons, but I kinda hate buttons so I didn’t. Only one person asked me where the buttons were during the whole show, but I’m sure plenty would have been taken if they were there. I’ll never get it, but apparently people love buttons.
Wrap-Up
I guess that’s it from me! I hope it answered some questions you might have had, or gave you an interesting glimpse behind the scenes if you weren’t familiar. Again, it was my first time at an exhibition of this scale so I don’t claim to be some kind of authority. That said, I found it hugely rewarding and energizing, and I can’t wait to dive back into development (after a short rest) to finish this thing off!!
I”ll leave you with some game stats from the exhibition, as I am want to do:
Games Played: 934
Total Player Count: 1,287 (the main station was set up for co-op)
Tutorial Area (Shield + Officer Invaders) Cleared: 823 (88%)
First Main Boss (Blast Jumper) Cleared: 744 (80%)
Entire Demo Cleared: 666 (74%)
Avg. Deaths: 1.6
Avg Clear Time: 5min
Avg Final Rank: D (only 4 players got an A, 23 players got a B!)
Final Difficulty Breakdown: Normal = 79%, Hard = 15%, Very Hard = 6% (the demo had dynamic difficulty, and wouldn’t drop below Normal. You had to die 3 times for the difficulty to drop, so it seems it was pretty good on average at placing people in optimal difficulties.)
Game Keys Handed Out: 1,000
Game Keys Redeemed: 315
Very lastly, mega shout-outs to everyone at the MEGABOOTH, my partner Lu, our XA Sean, Joonas Turner, Anthony Swinnich, Ditto, James Petruzzi, Jon Remedios, Mobeen Fikree, Kelly, everyone at Raw Fury, Miguel Sternberg, and all the other amazing people who helped me tons and made my PAX amazing. None of you are probably reading this but thank you all the same!!