Australian Game Developers Matt Trobbiani and Chris Johnson are best friends. They do everything together. They grew up in Adelaide together. They did a Computer Science degree together. They made video games together, released video games together. But when Matt released Hacknet and Chris Johnson released Expand, everything changed. One game made its creator rich, the other sent its creator broke. Both have to live with the consequences.

I've gone on something of a local co-op bender in the last year, having upgraded my living room and refurbished an old i5 and GTX 660 Ti into a perfectly serviceable Steam box. It's made me keen for a variety of party games and games that can be shared with friends. Casual but competitive experiences, if you will.

Steam Machines will finally be coming to Australia as of next year, and while there won't be a massive amount of surprises with the one major sticking point is the GPU.

Like the Surface Book, it's a custom chip that NVIDIA has put together for Alienware -- and you won't be able to upgrade it if you want more grunt.

It's hot. It was raining ten minutes ago and I've just returned from touching up my smudged makeup in the bathroom -- only to start sweating it off again the minute I get outside. I'm waiting for my friend who has spent the whole morning applying her full body paint, only now arriving at the convention at 2pm. She'll probably leave again in two hours just to start taking it all off again. This is the PAX experience for your average cosplayer.

I wasn't sure how popular it would be on the show floor, but when I saw queues going around the corner for Opaque's Earthlight project at PAX Australia it put a smile on my face.

Gamers, it seems, were pretty happy to try out VR experiences that broadened the scope of what a normal game could be. But a lot of people still have issues with VR, and floating around in space can exacerbate a lot of those.

It can be difficult to digest the entirety of PAX Australia -- there's so many games, panels, people and costumes to see.

To help the digestive process, here's our entire coverage of the event from the minute the doors opened (well, to the queue area anyway) to the minute the doors closed.

We knew PAX Australia would showcase a variety of VR experiences, but perhaps just as interesting is the experiences that weren't made.

Norman Wang, Opaque Media Group's project lead on Earthlight, to talk about VR. Our chat veered off into the team's collaboration with NASA and the potential avenues that could lead to, and Wang revealed something unexpected.

During an interview with Alienware's Joe Olmsted, the development and planning manager not only confirmed that Australians would be getting their hands on Steam's fabled controller soon, but he also announced a window when that would happen.

There's no other event in Australia quite like PAX. The atmosphere is incredible: it's full of colour, there are smiles on every face and there is a sense of conviviality that is so often absent from the gaming community.

But PAX isn't just the people. It's also the costumes. The booths. The games. The panels. The toys. And the halls that house them all. You can see those, and more, in our photo wrap-up of the event after the jump.

"Daddy, it looks like those men are fighting."

"Yes it does, son. Yes it does..."

It’s the heart and soul of not just PAX Australia, but PAX all around the world. It’s the tabletop and freeplay area, the place where gamers from far and wide come to share their passions, discover new ones and relax in an area far away from the merchandise and corporatised nature of the rest of the exhibition hall.

So why does one half of that, the freeplay area, look so uninviting?

For those of you who are not able to attend PAX Australia this year -- don't fret! You can watch a large number of the main panels live on the PAX Twitch stream.

Today is another humdinger of a line-up.

Scott Ludlam spoke at PAX Australia today, alongside Tony Reed of the Game Developer's Association of Australia and Ron Curry of the Interactive Games Association of Australia.

The overwhelming message? The Australian games industry is worth investing in. And the Australian government should be doing more.

As soon as Wargaming began openly slotting Master of Orion into emails about PAX Australia, I was immediately intrigued. There were so many questions to ask: why did Wargaming pick up Master of Orion in the first place? How does a free-to-play model even work with a 4X? And would they stay true to the original?

As it turns out, the answer is yes -- exceedingly so.

One of the best parts of PAX Australia is the Indie Games section and this year it's bigger than ever, but there is a collective anxiety. People seem to the throwing this word around a lot: Indie-pocalypse. The idea that it's getting harder and harder to make money making video games as an indie.

Fallout 4 had a huge line for most of the day yesterday -- and if past years are anything to go by, both Saturday and Sunday's lines will be even bigger. Many fans may be hoping for a hands-on with the game, or even a peek at some never-before-seen gameplay footage. Many fans are going to be disappointed.

The first person shooter genre is enjoying a bit of a resurgence, which is a good sign for the three developers behind DESYNC -- because in a world of objective-based, team shooters, they're setting themselves a part with a touch of style.

Or, more accurately, a bucket of it. A bucket of neon, to be exact.

I've been at PAX Australia for a few hours now, and at least two of them have been spent at the PAX Rising indie game area. There are a bunch of amazing VR experiences for anyone who doesn't want to line up for hours for the AAA VR games. There's a handful of single player adventure games, platformers and strategy games -- but one of the best things about the indie area is the huge range of multiplayer options.

A quick reminder: even if you can't attend PAX Australia, you can still watch the panels!

A large number of the major panels are being streamed live to the PAX Twitch channel.