Jason Schreier

Sure.

This question comes from Kevin, who writes, Hi, Tripsies.

I'm a dad in my late 40s who has picked up gaming as a serious hobby within the last three years.

I'm now at a point where I am listening to multiple gaming podcasts, following all the new releases in industry news, and generally diving headfirst into all things gaming.

The one thing I've never done, for which I have intense curiosity...

is attend a gaming convention or expo.

From what I hear, the experience sounds like a ton of fun.

Unfortunately, given my hobby is still somewhat in its infancy, I don't have many gaming friends, so a trip would likely be solo.

In the last few weeks, I have been looking at Summer Game Fest and the events surrounding it.

I know not many official events are open to the public, but would it be worth a two-day solo trip for those that are?

And if not, are there any other conferences or events that you would recommend?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Absolutely not.

Yeah, I think that would be the only additional advice I would offer is to like lower the stakes and keep it as close to you as possible.

Because, you know, going to something like a PAX by yourself, like PAX is probably more fun with your friends because then you're waiting in line, but you're waiting in line with your friends.

Like it is still, you're going to the hotel together, you're sitting around in the beanbags, you know, playing Switch together.

Like there is...

kind of there's plenty of opportunities for being social but if you're on your own I could imagine it actually feeling kind of isolating or like a bummer if depending on the experience you wind up having like you could still kind of feel alone in a crowd and that might be a bummer where you know looking at your local town you know Kevin doesn't talk about where he lives but

There might just be like a game night, a tabletop night at a game shop that you could go to where you kind of start meeting people who are into this kind of stuff.

And then maybe that game shop does a live stream where they watch the Game Awards and you can go hang out.