PAX Australia takes place in Melbourne from July 19 until the 21st, so I wondered why local developers like Tinman Games would head to PAX East, in Boston, when we had our own PAX at home in three or four months. I worked out the answer to my own stupid question pretty quickly, but I still thought it was worth asking all the Australian developers I spoke to during PAX East.
The answer is obvious, of course — different countries, different people, different audiences. Just because PAX is coming to Australia, it doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile for Australians to head to the US to pimp their wares.
For Tin Man Games, the US Audience is especially important.
“We make most of our sales in the states,” explained Neil Rennison, Tin Man Games’ Creative Director. “The states in massive when it comes to role playing games and that’s kinda what we do. This is our third year, and there is a noticeable increase in sales when we comes to PAX East. It’s not a massive spike, but the awareness grows from it as well.”
The US market is a unique one, particularly for Tin Man Games, who specialise in modern game books for iOS. For Americans the work Tin Man Games does is actually quite unique. Neil finds that he has to really grab the attention of PAX attendees, but the second he explains what Game Books are and how they work, people get very excited indeed.
“We grew up with it, but Americans had Choose Your Own Adventure, which was a bit different. So when I stand here and talk to Americans and ask if they played Choose Your Own Adventure? They say yes, and then I ask if they like Dungeons and Dragons. When I tell them what we do brings those two things together, they lose their mind!
“So to the American audience what we do is really new, even though it’s very old!”
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