PAX East announced their schedule of panels today (or yesterday or whenever), and there are a lot of good ones. It's too bad I won't be able to attend this year. But there's plenty of stuff going on in the midwest to keep me busy.
If I were going to PAX East, these are the panels I would definitely want to attend:
1UP Presents: Retronauts Vs. 16 Bits - Friday @ 3pm
Live recording of 1up's defunct Retronauts podcast including panelists Jeremy Parish, Chris Kohler and Frank Cifaldi. Though, they will most likely record this panel and release it on 1up.com, so missing this panel won't hurt. I ususally never go anyway.
From Background To Center Stage: Building Game Worlds As Main Characters - Friday @ 5pm
A panel including Irrational Games members Ken Levine and Shawn Elliot, headed by Julian Murdoch. Plenty of Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite matters included...
Inside Game Localization - Friday @ 8pm
Including the leads at Kajiya Productions as they discuss localizing Final Fantasy 12 and Tactics Ogre, among other things.
PAX East Chiptune Showcase - Saturday @ 11am
Zen Albatross hosts an event with some of the best chip artists from the east coast including Sabrepulse, Br1ght Pr1mate, and himself.
Owned but Independent - Saturday @ 11am
At the same time, a panel including Brian Raffel and Eric Biessman of local Madison game studio, Raven, discuss what it's like to be "owned" by Activision. Even though, I would end up going to the Chiptune panel, it'd be nice to support local game development. ^_^
Videogame Antiques Roadshow - Saturday @ 6:30pm
A panel including Chris Kohler and Frank Cifaldi discuss game collecting and finding value in old games.
Making the "Citizen Kane" of Poker Games - Sunday @ 3pm
Idle Thumbs alert. Sean Vanaman, Jake Rodkin and other Telltale Games members speak about the development of Poker Night at the Inventory.
These are all the ones that really popped out at me. There's also the really high attendance panels such as the Penny Arcade panels, and everything in the main room, but I usually skip those. I've attended enough of those in the past that I would know what to expect and there's plenty of other things that would keep me busy.
But yeah, I'm skipping PAX East this year. Â I plan on attending PAX Normal, as I do each year, so you can catch me there.
Here's the link to the full panel schedule: http://east.paxsite.com/schedule.php