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Last Night
Last night, I watched some of Seattle's most successful geeks face off in a 14-man ping-pong showdown.
Penny Arcade, the hometown gaming empire responsible for the Child's Play charity and the annual PAX expo, is, weirdly, staffed almost entirely with ping-pong addicts. They talk about ping-pong, make comics about ping-pong, and, once every few months, invite local video game companies to play a few matches in their Fremont office. (The ping-pong table gets a dedicated room there.)
This most recent match welcomed Redmond game studio Airtight Games , who seemed unprepared from the start—at least, compared to PA's set of matching red polo shirts with tiny game controller insignias on the breast.
The athleticism on display wasn't the stuff of major athletes, sure, but these gamers used every inch of the room during the two-hour tournament, dashing and diving and slamming shots at the table's edges to prove that geeks can move nimbly when needed. Great shots were met with rounds of applause from a dozens-strong crowd of friends, along with the Penny Arcade crew's rallying ping-pong cry: "Paint the line!"
Penny Arcade won handily, 6 matches to 1. (Previous matches have been filmed, if you're curious enough to watch both videos.)
Penny Arcade, the hometown gaming empire responsible for the Child's Play charity and the annual PAX expo, is, weirdly, staffed almost entirely with ping-pong addicts. They talk about ping-pong, make comics about ping-pong, and, once every few months, invite local video game companies to play a few matches in their Fremont office. (The ping-pong table gets a dedicated room there.)
This most recent match welcomed Redmond game studio Airtight Games , who seemed unprepared from the start—at least, compared to PA's set of matching red polo shirts with tiny game controller insignias on the breast.
The athleticism on display wasn't the stuff of major athletes, sure, but these gamers used every inch of the room during the two-hour tournament, dashing and diving and slamming shots at the table's edges to prove that geeks can move nimbly when needed. Great shots were met with rounds of applause from a dozens-strong crowd of friends, along with the Penny Arcade crew's rallying ping-pong cry: "Paint the line!"
Penny Arcade won handily, 6 matches to 1. (Previous matches have been filmed, if you're curious enough to watch both videos.)
