The lights are out, the halls empty. The cleaning crews have descended upon the Washington State Convention Center to make it as if we, the PAX '08 attendees, were never there. Looking back on the last 72 hours, it's sad that it's over, and the entire event amounted to more than just the sum of its parts.

I talked to more people (including two writers for The Village Voice) and caught some of the best panels yet today, which gave me a little different perspective. For one, almost all of the attendees I spoke with—from media to cosplayers to uber-fanatics—were the very picture of politeness, which given the nature of how idiotic some gamers can behave online, when they have to interact without the anonymity of the Web to hide behind, they put their best face forward. Of course, this makes them look like even bigger jackasses when they get back online the next day and continue living up to their GamerTag of D-bag420.

For another, when sitting in a panel on sex and violence in video games and the moral responsibility that that entails, before me were Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, President of What They Like and former EGM and 1up.com guru John Davison, author and psychologist Cheryl K. Olson, and former head of Nintendo PR, Perrin Kaplan. If you don't know who at least two of those people are and you consider yourself well versed in the who's who of game journalism and politics, you might want to bone up. These are all people I would have been honored to meet individually; having them all here together was quite a treat.

And this is one of the many amazing things that PAX does. It creates an environment where veterans in the industry and the average gamer can enter a dialogue about the big and small issues facing the biz past, present, and future, something that really can't happen at E3 or many of the other conventions associated with our hobby. It also garners you access to more like-minded individuals in three days' time than you'll see the rest of the year combined. Whether you're into quirky Japanese-only b-list titles (like Vs. ExciteBike used for the final round of the Omegathon) or series with yearly predictable iterations (Madden, Pokemon, Need for Speed, etc.) or the indie/quirky scene (XBLA games, mobile games, game/anime soundtracks, and upstart companies whose entire marketing budget for the year went into their PAX booth), there's something and someone here who's looking forward to meeting you, whether they (or you) realize it or not.

The PA Q&A on Sunday was hilarious and full of insight and personality, as always. Of particular note were the responses when asked what Gabe and Tycho enjoy most about fatherhood, since both of them became dads in the last few years.  The responses in and of themselves were remarkable and thoughtfully chosen, but perhaps more impressive was that they could turn off the jokes and silliness for a moment and really open up to a room full of complete strangers who had to have been making them nervous.