Following PAX, quite a few indie devs I talk to on the reg’ asked me whether or not I think it’s worth exhibiting on the showfloor (or even attending at all). The answer is usually a complicated mish-mash that involve more questions like, “Well, what are you hoping to get out of being there?" Like most things in game development, computing a concrete return on investment is tricky. Conventions are expensive, and it seems unrealistic to assume you being at an event is going to result in a large enough spike in downloads to justify the cost of being there. If it was that easy, everyone would do it.

Anyway, even if you’re not that interested in their games, the guys from Butterscotch Shenanigans have a fantastic podcast that typically discuss a lot of universally relevant indie dev stuff rather than being a podcast that specifically focuses on their own games. (Although a lot of their discussions obviously lean on experiences surrounding the games they’ve made.) This week’s episode is particularly great, as the BScotch Boyz do a great job of answering the previously mentioned question of “Is it worth it?"

The tl;dr (or I guess… tl;dl?) basically amounts to the spike in downloads they saw on Crashlands ($6.99) following four days of showing the game on the PAX show floor is effectively non-existent. Or, if it exists, it’s inside of their normal day to day variance of download spikes. There’s some other layers of complication though, and in talking to other developers also at PAX, they heard a lot of different reasons as to why developers year over year keep coming back. Behemoth, for instance, considers it a fantastic play testing opportunity. If this is something you’re interested in, a question you’ve had yourself, or are just curious about a developer’s perspective as a gamer interested in PAX, definitely give it a listen.

If you’re not into the whole Soundcloud thing, the Coffee With Butterscotch podcast is also available on iTunes.