PAX was created in 2004 by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the Penny Arcade webcomic, because they wanted to attend a show exclusively for gaming.

The first Penny Arcade Expo was held on August 28–29, 2004 (2004-08-28 – 2004-08-29), at the Meydenbauer Center, and was attended by about 3,300 people.

[6] The first PAX South was held in San Antonio, Texas, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center on January 23–25, 2015.

[8] From 2011 until 2020, Penny Arcade held PAX Dev, an annual event meant to allow the game developer community to "speak freely and focus entirely on their trade".

Past games for the final round of the Omegathon have included Tetris, Pong, Halo 3, and skee-ball.

Now a paid role, most Enforcers are still not professional conference organizers or temps, but rather selected from an application available to attendees on the PAX website.