PAX Australia: Religion, freelancing and fun

Pax! A great time was had by all. 

I was a little wary, to be honest - wary that somehow GamerGoats would turn PAX into their plaything, but I came into this conference frustrated with games and walked out more energised than ever before. I saw great games, played them with some great people, and in general had an awesome time.

But that's not why you're here! (I thi3nk). Over the weekend I took part in a few different panels. One on religion, another on working in the games industry and another on freelancing.

The first one, Religion and Spirituality in Video Games, is a panel I organised with Mark Serrels, Nathan Cocks and Jason Imms. All great guys are we had a fantastic discussion - the audience asked really wonderful questions and seemed interested the whole time.

A quick clarification: I say at the beginning of the panel that we're focusing on Judeo-Christian history with regard to religion. Although this is my comfort zone, so to speak, it's also pretty exclusionary. Additionally, we don't have a huge range of voices on the panel with regard to other religions.

This is a hard thing to fix, because panels are usually created by people with the intent of inviting on their friends and close pals. Given I was new to this whole thing, that's what I've done here. I still think we have a great, inclusive discussion, but next time we do this sort of thing opening up to more voices is something I'll definitely remain conscious of.

Forgive my intro - I kind of repeat myself a little bit. But the discussion was great! I promise! Hope you enjoy it. 

Moving on! I also got together a bunch of cool peeps and talked about the show and video games in general. That discussion ended up being an episode of the Hyper Pixelcast, which you can listen to below, or here on their website:

And finally! I appeared on a panel at PAX about working in the games industry - and specifically, what people don't tell you about it. I appeared with a few developers, marketing and publishing peeps and another journalist, Nathan Cocks, about working in the industry and its deep dark secrets. Check it out!