RePlay FX: The Razzle-Dazzle, The Splendor, and The Fringe

Of the fandom conventions in Pittsburgh, RePlay FX is fast becoming my favorite. While I may be biased, having attended since its inception, or since its rebranding as RePlay anyway (in years prior, it was Pinburgh, which still maintains an impressive presence), in its fifth year, the show has become a solid entertainment venue. While RePlay FX has always had razzle-dazzle, in the form of its constant arcade lightshow, and fleets of coin-op, console, and pinball games, in 2019, there were signs that the convention had become healthy and viable in ways other than its impressive spectacle and growing attendance, such as vendors flocking to the convention in larger numbers and greater variety, and convention-goers distributed throughout the entire show floor, enjoying all of what RePlay FX brings to the table.

And outside the show floor as well. While the tabletop gaming has been relegated to the concourse since the early year of the convention, after Thursday this year, that spin-off rarely had open tables, so that when two of us sat down for a game of Splendor, we had to share a table with another game in session. While most of these board gamers had heads bowed over gateway games like Ticket to Ride and Catan, a few hip gamers threw down Horrified and a few other games getting good GenCon buzz. Families with children also use the concourse as a rest stop, taking a breather at the giant floor checkers, fussball tables, or eighties entertainment center, comprised of a mottled brown couch, NES, and coffee table strewn with vintage TV guides to complete its time travel effect.

While cosplay remains minor at RePlay FX compared to Tekko or Steel City Con, there were a handful of Stormtroopers, Marios, and other enthusiastic cosplayers in attendance. That said, there were absolutely zero cosplays which I would call riveting, or even noteworthy. While interest in cosplay is usually a good gauge as to fandom participation in an event, I don’t believe this is the case with RePlay FX. Despite the lack of cosplay and visible signs of fandom participation, RePlay FX 2019 was suffused throughout with a buzzing wave of enthusiasm. People were not only enjoying themselves, but chattering about it. As the demographic broadens a little, cosplay should become more dynamic.

If my eyes seem drawn to these fringe activities, they’re a practical slide rule to gauge the growth and performance of the convention. As the arcade and pinball games have always been the hugest draw for RePlay FX, it should be no surprise that these areas continue to see substantial increase, given the steady interest, but with the “fringe” areas having wait times, such as lines forming at vendors, and increasingly limited table space for board games, here we see RePlay FX threatening to break free of its current shape and become a local gaming megaconvention. Cosplay should become more popular as the fringe areas of the con develop. While I admit this optimistic prediction may be biased by my hope for great things from RePlay FX, my perceptions are also shaped not only by my experience with local cons, like Tekko, Wizard World Pittsburgh, and Steel City Con, but attendance of large cons, like San Diego Comic Con, New York Comic Con, and Mega Con. If I’m wishful in small part, I believe in large part that the outline of a much bigger event is visible in, and being shaped by, these current trends.

RePlay FX: The Soul and The Aura

If you’ve never been to RePlay FX, you may wonder, ‘what’s the draw?’ Perhaps you’ve been to other gaming conventions, like a PAX or GenCon, and your standards are set by these other gaming fandom venues. Why should you come to RePlay FX?

While you can’t go back in time to the magical moment you entered your first video arcade, RePlay FX will likely surpass that memory when you step into its alluring array of coin-op and pinball in a pixel-blasting spread of hundreds of games conjured from past decades and set to free play. Not only Asteroids, Tempest, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Space Invaders, but countless obscurities and oddities, not to mention pinball machines with cool, mercurial, or downright arcane or diabolical designs that would not be out of place tatted on an arm or sprayed on the side of a cheesy van, but are nonetheless cutting edge after all this time. While you might still be mesmerized if the games were under stark light, the event designers set a perfect ambiance with its shadowy arcade cave lit by a colorful lightshow.

Not only the soul of RePlay FX, but its aura, this host of video games will keep you coming back year after year.

That said, let me take you through a sample first day.

Upon arriving at the David H Lawrence convention center, and having traversed a tunnel draped with RePlay FX’s vinyl banner, you ascend the escalator to registration–which has a steady dozen or so in line on Saturday, a small line on Friday or Sunday, and no line on Thursday (for now, still the best day for skipping crowds and lines)–buy a shirt if you’re so inclined, glance at the fussball tables, huge plastic checker set, and tabletop gaming, then plunge into Hall A, skipping past all these wooden and plastic analog entertainments in your rush for full-on Pac-Man Fever and the fistful of pixels you came for, and after homicidal driving in Crazy Taxi, you hop into pizza-crunching, sidescrolling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; blast Asteroids into bits; dodge waves of Dalek pinballs authentically voiced by Nicholas Briggs; embrace the accelerating tedium of Space Invaders for one level only; find that game you always got extra mileage on as a kid, and let a line dawdle behind you; then remember why you ever loved Centipede when your eight year old can’t walk past one without playing it.

Conclusion

RePlay FX did such an incredible job cramming Hall A with buzzers, blinkers, bumpers, tempests, pac-men, defenders, and asteroids that I had a hard time remembering that this was not the largest con at the David H Lawrence convention center this year. That honor would go to Tekko, who takes over several halls, not only on the second floor but the third floor. Despite that, RePlay FX felt like the bigger con this year, using nearly every inch of Hall A, until it became like a dragon’s lair, hoarded with glints, gleams, and sinister noises, a destination worthy of an epic quest for a four day cache of digital loot.

In terms of vision, RePlay FX is just as big and grandiose as the PAXes and those other gaming cons you’ve heard of and dreamed of going to–and if, in terms of size, it hasn’t yet achieved it, well, RePlay is only in its fifth year.

Cross-posted on Board of Life. RePlay FX provided free press passes to this event.