PAX Aus 2023 packed with product for avid gamers to look forward to in shops

You can guess correctly when a convention is in town when you see thousands of people going to one place dressed in gaming related gear and cosplay. That’s the sight witnessed last weekend when PAX Aus 2023 took over the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Thousands of people gearing up for the next big thing in gaming attended the massive exhibition that spanned three days, featuring bigger panels presented by the best game developers and creators.

It was great to see a section filled with independent game developers wanting to exhibit their new projects, with local and New Zealand created games all in the mix. I became attracted to this game called Copycat which is about finding ‘belongingness’ while an impostor takes over the house (also it has a cat!).

Having just moved to Melbourne from Perth, attending a convention as big as this can be quite intimidating. People were clamoring for free giveaways and fortunately many stallholders were giving away great stuff – unlike in Perth where everything must be paid for (PR and marketing strings in Perth are tightly wound).

At PAX Aus, stallhoders were so generous they were throwing freebies into the air!

Nintendo had a notably huge presence at the convention with demos of new games including Mario Kart 8, Super Mario Wonder, new DLC for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. They also sold some limited-edition merchandise, such as playing cards, clothing, Switch accessories, games – and even gave away Mario pins. Since Detective Pikachu returns arrived on Friday, Pikachu hats were all over the place!

SEGA was there to exhibit their new games, but the biggest queues were for Sonic Superstars, which is coming out on October 17. Besides Sonic being the biggest draw for them, SEGA also showed Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, which is another game I was looking forward to learn more about.

While new games were the biggest draws, there was also a fair amount of anime on display, along with various eSports, PC and board games. Crunchyroll held a massive stall where they were offering 14-day trials for their streaming sites. Cooler Master, MSI, ROG (Republic of Gaming) and Twitch were present, too.

There were some notable stalls such as Five Nights at Freddy’s promoting the new movie (out October 23) and providing plenty of great photo ops. Also on display were Dungeons and Dragons, Magic the Gathering, Exploding Kittens (including the fab new expansion, Zombie Kittens), Star Wars tabletop games, such as Shatterfield and some board products from Big Potato Games.

Tabletop RPG, Star Wars Shatterpoint.

Outside of the Expo Hall, there were some stations for handheld gaming, Jackbox sessions, and theaters used for panels. I just wished there was a corner in the Expo for Cosplay photoshoots as this was instead situated in the annex connecting the Expo to the theaters, which was way overcrowded.

Dedicated Cosplayers for the love of Hollow Knight.

One of the most interesting parts to see in the convention were the eSports. There were a bunch of great competitions I witnessed. And I also enjoyed the competitions for Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon 3.

HIghlights for me included the panel dedicated to Legend of Zelda speedruns – that is, for punters to get through a gameplay as quickly as they can; John Robertson hosting ‘The Dark Room’ (which was something I watched in the early 2010s in Wai-Con), and talks from Pyrocynical (big YouTuber), Gus ‘Goose’ Ronald, and Peter ‘Pierreth’ Burns.

Overall, PAX Aus 2023 was great fun and a half. Looking forward to next year.

Mango Adonis

Codes from the cultish Cult of the Lamb video game.

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