acam

Pac-Man at 35

Thu, 28 May 2015 04:00:00 GMT

On May 22nd, 1980, everything changed in the arcades. Video arcade gaming had been all about sports games and shooter games. Games such Asteroids, Space Invaders, and the varying derivatives of Pong were the kings of the arcades. That is, until a 26-year-old Japanese game designer had an idea about expanding arcade gaming to a more general audience and becoming more encompassing to women.

Pac-Man has a pretty simple concept. The idea is for the player to move Pac-Man around a maze and have him dots while avoiding the four colorful monsters. There are power-up dots located in each corner of the maze that give Pac-Man invincibility to eat the monsters. A score multiplier awards increasing points for each monster that is consumed. The monsters (Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde) have differing personalities and will attempt to follow you using different methods. For additional bonus scoring, various edible items appear periodically in the center of the maze.

Puck Man Flyer

Puck Man Arcade Cabinet

So how did this game get its start? In April of 1979, a young game designer named Toru Iwatani assembled a small team and set out to create a game based on eating. The original Japanese title during development was Pakkuman, which is a Japanese slang word to describe the sound made when opening and closing the mouth. Iwantani has been quoted over the years talking about how different attributes of the game (colors, cute characters, mazes, etc.) were created to attract women into arcade gaming. He felt that arcade gaming needed to grow beyond the typical teenage boys that were the typical game players of the era.

The familiar Pac-Man cabinet.

Pac-Man game screen capture.

Another inspiration for the game was the American cartoon character Popeye. Iwatani thought that the concept of eating to gain strength & power would translate well into the game. Once everything came together, the game was named PuckMan, which was a reference to the fact that the main character was shaped like a hockey puck.

The game made its first appearance in Japanese arcades on May 22nd, 1980. The initial reaction was mixed. It was not until the game hit American arcades in October of 1980 that the game became a smash hit. The game was licensed to Midway for U.S. manufacture/distribution and renamed to Pac-Man. Within a few short months, Pac-Man became the highest selling arcade game of its era. It is estimated that approximately 400,000 Pac-Man cabinets were assembled worldwide.

Just a few of the products inspired by Pac-Man!

The game also became a cultural phenomenon. The game spawned lunchboxes, t-shirts, board games, telephones, breakfast cereal, action figures, plush toys and even lamps. Buckner & Garcia wrote a song about Pac-Man that reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March of 1982.

Pac-Man also spawned a number of sequels in the arcade (both authorized & unauthorized) and countless home versions for consoles & computers. The Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man arcade games were developed here in New England by General Computer Corporation. What started off as an enhancement kit for Pac-Man ended up being Ms. Pac-Man, which went on to be the most successful American arcade video game. Over its lifetime, Ms. Pac-Man sold over 115,000 cabinets.

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+ launch trailer.

Poster for PIXELS, a new movie coming in 2015.

Pac-Man lives on today in several forms. While popular on mobile phones and tablets, the best form of the game today is Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+ available on Xbox, PlayStation & Windows PC formats. To celebrate this 35th anniversary, Namco had a big party at Level 257, their gaming-themed restaurant in Chicago, Illinois. Toru Iwatani was in attendance as well as other notable dignitaries such as Jerry Buckner of Buckner & Garcia.

Pac-Man will appear this summer in a movie called PIXELS starring Adam Sandler & Michelle Monaghan. In this movie, aliens misinterpret video feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war. They attack the Earth in the form of the video games.

Poster for PIXELS, a new movie coming in 2015.

The Pinball Doctor

Mon, 01 Sep 2014 22:50:58 GMT

To most of us, an old 19-inch television tube is junk. To Gary Vincent, it's gold.

Vincent is the curator and president of the American Classic Arcade Museum at Weirs Beach. The museum is home to more than 300 video game machines and pinball machines, all of them at least thirty years old and no two of them the same. ACAM is the largest classic video game museum in the world.

The museum takes up most of the third floor of Funspot. On a recent midmorning in June, there are few visitors, but the games are lined up and ready to go, with their flashing multi-colored screens taking center stage from the muted overhead lights. Occasional blips, plinks, and whirrs emanate from each sparkling, shining cabinet as a woman walks by; it’s easy to believe the games are winking and smiling and calling her to play with them.

Vincent's passion for all things video and pinball was born when he was a high school student during the heyday of video games in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During that time, he says, video arcades sprung up everywhere. Sadly, almost 75 percent of arcades that opened during this time would close, in part, Vincent explains, because the owners didn’t understand the business, and in part because technology began putting arcade-quality gaming systems in homes-the games were victims of their own popularity. As a result, he adds, relatively few of the between 5000 and 6000 games that were made in the 1970s and 1980s still exist.

That is why Vincent spends his days looking for old video and pinball machines and the parts to fix them. He has taken classes in video game repair; he mines the Internet looking for games and components and will happily scrounge through old warehouses looking for parts; and he has even driven to Pennsylvania to pick up eight empty cabinets, all of which he used to restore classic games that were put on the floor of his museum for the public to play.

And that is why he is always on the lookout for 19-inch television tubes.

The ACAM story is a classic tale of an individual who turned a hobby into a career. Vincent remembers that he used to play video games at Funspot as a high schooler. At the end of the summer of 1981, owner Bob Lawton asked him to fill in for a couple of weeks to replace college kids returning to school. “That three weeks turned into 33 years.”

As an employee of Funspot, Vincent began noticing that guests always responded particularly strongly to the video games and pinball machines that were on the floor. “I noticed that people were coming in and still playing Defender and Frogger and telling me that they just didn’t see them anymore,” he says. “We were getting a lot of feedback on the old games.”

Bob Lawton was always looking to introduce something new to the business, explains Vincent, and over time he allowed Vincent to put all the old games into one place in the building. That place was the third floor. In 1998, the American Classic Arcade Museum was formally born.

Since that time, the decision to create the now 10,000-square-foot museum has proven visionary. As an example, Vincent points to the number of colleges who are creating computer game design programs. One such institution, Champlain College in Vermont, sends a group of students to ACAM every year to learn the history and the craft of game design. According to Vincent, the college reached out to ACAM and sent 50 students the first year. This year, 150 students traveled to Weirs Beach to study the old games.

The students get a treat not offered to members of the general public — Vincent actually pulls the backs off the games and allows students to look at the components and study the way they were designed. He also invites them into his back-room workshop where the actual work of restoring the games takes place. The back room is full of boards consoles, cabinets, and components stored neatly in drawers that once housed architectural blueprints and on shelves that Vincent built specifically for their purpose. This experience yields a cautionary tale for the students: Vincent proudly displays a circuit board from a Midway Ranger Race game from 1980 with a badly placed battery that leaked over the circuits and destroyed them. It’s an example of “what not to do,” Vincent warns.

The recent PAX East gaming conference in Boston drew more than 80,000 people in three days. Vincent says that the top computer game manufactures and designers were there, as well as stars in the nearly $10 billion a year industry. ACAM was present with a stable of thirty-year-old video games and pinball machines, including a Pong machine from 1973 that is generally credited as the first video game. “Here we were at the premier game show in the world, and there was a non-stop line of people wanting to play Pong from 1973,” Vincent marvels. “Our room was filled with people. Many of them were kids who were younger than the games they were playing.”

“It’s a real tip of the hat to the guys who designed these games originally,” he adds.

Indeed, while Vincent pays due respect to the current generation of computer games, he insists the old games possess a unique charm and an even greater fun quotient.

He offers the example of his purchase of a Nintendo Wii gaming system and balance board. After twenty minutes of watching the tutorial, he still hadn’t figured out the game. His wife even asked, “When do we start having Fun?” Vincent says the system went back into the box and never came out again.

In Vincent‘s estimation, his wife’s simple question sums up the overarching and everlasting appeal of classic video and pinball games: “They are easy to play and hard to master.”

The full range of mastery was on display at the museum this past June during the 16th Annual International Classic Video Game Tournament, where 1,134 entrants from 35 states and three countries — Canada. Australia, and the Azores — competed over the course of three days on ACAM's most classic machines. According to Vincent, several competitors even made the tournament a vacation destination. In a recent nod to modern technology, Vincent introduced a large touchscreen display on the wall of the museum so that competitors could record and track their scores throughout the tournament; the list of games takes up five pages of display space. And in a nod to all the benefactors who have supported ACAM since its inception, the tournament was dedicated to those who have donated games and components. Every game used in the tournament was donated.

It is the hands-on experience that distinguishes ACAM From other classic game museums, Vincent says. With very few exceptions, every game at ACAM is available for public play. Even though they are all 30 years or older, and some are starting to show their age, Vincent says that an arcade museum that didn’t allow the public to play would be like a classic film museum that allowed patrons to see only the cans the movies came in and not the movies themselves.

“I didn’t want it all to be behind red velvet ropes and 'Do Not Touch' signs.”

ACAM visitors can do much more than just look at the cans. In fact, the only machine that isn’t available for public play is a Stop and Go pinball machine from 1939 so old it doesn't even have the flippers that are the hallmark of later pinball machines. Vincent explains regretfully that it is just too old and too fragile to allow the public to touch it.

All the other games are ready For play at the drop of a token. Visitors can experience the largest pinball machine ever made, the behemoth Hercules game from 1979 that was donated to the museum by a man in North Carolina. "They can also play the full range of Pac-Man games: Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man Plus, Super Pac-Man, and Pac and Pal.

Another highlight is Death Race from 1976, in which the game player attempts to run down zombies with a car. It was the most controversial video game of its time. According to Vincent, the original name of the game was “Pedestrian” and it triggered an uproar in the seventies over the violence in video games. The controversy even made it to “60 Minutes.” ACAM’s machine was “a total wreck when we got it," Vincent remembers. He rebuilt it from parts and even had a man in Florida donate a silk screen of the original design. ACAM’s machine is unique in another way — every other Death Race game cabinet was black and white but ACAM’s is black and yellow. “It is the only yellow Death Race that I know of,” Vincent notes.

Even though Vincent knows the story and history of each game at ACAM, he says he rarely plays for pleasure anymore. “I only play when I fix a machine and play it to make sure it works,” he says.

Vincent is hesitant to identify his favorite machine. Rather, he says, he enjoys the search for the parts he needs to fix and rebuild the classics and the rare intact game — for instance, a Monte Carlo video game from 1973 that sat untouched in a crate in Toronto for 41 years-that he occasionally finds online or in back — road warehouses.

Is there a particular game he is looking for? "The next one," he says with a smile.

16th Annual International Classic Video Game Tournament A Hit

Thu, 29 May 2014 04:00:00 GMT

Laconia — Robert Macauley hops on a flight from Adelaide, Australia, halfway around the world to Laconia every year for one reason: to compete in the International Classic Video Game Tournament at Funspot.

“I've been playing these things basically since they came out; they're the games I grew up with,” Macauley said. “There's nothing like this back home, so it's worth flying half way around the world for.”

Now in its 16th year, the tournament is known for drawing players from all around the world to compete against the best in classic gaming. From Thursday through Sunday, players will compete to win trophies and a grand prize of $750.

Gary Vincent, president of the American Classic Arcade Museum, which organizes the competition, said he believes the event set a record this year for the most people registered on the first day. He said gamers come into the event not knowing what game they'll be playing.

“We want to have everybody, at least from day one, start with as level a playing field as possible,” Vincent said. “We don't announce the titles ahead of time; we cover them up.”

Vincent said gamers competing this year are playing on games donated to the museum.

“Nothing up here is newer than about 1989, so it's a real time warp,” Vincent said. “There's almost 300 machines up here.”

The tournament has a fully automated scoring system using tablets. When a gamer receives a score they want to record, they raise their hand and a scorekeeper comes over and punches in the gamer's number and score. The score is then uploaded to aurcade.com.

“It provides and creates more competition,” Vincent said. “Last year, we logged about 4,500 scores over four days.”

Macauley said he looks forward to seeing what surprises the tournament throws at him.

“They always bring out games that no one knew they even had,” Macauley said. “Until they take those sheets off, only a few people that are involved with running it know what the games are going to be.”

He said he always like the friendly competition and seeing people that he normally can't see because of where he lives.

Greg Bond comes every year to watch the tournament.

“All the different players come from all around the world, and they have records on different games, and some guys come each year,” Bond said.

He said those same gamers are also pretty open to sharing tips and tricks.

David Nelson is one of two players who has been to every tournament. He said he frequented Funspot while growing up in the Lakes Region.

“If you grow up in Laconia with this in your backyard, you grow up a video gamer,” Nelson said. “Doesn't matter how old you get. You're a gamer for life.”

He said he loves competition.

“I plan on doing well,” Nelson said. “It sounds egotistical, but I usually place in the top three. Last year was the first time I didn't.”

Jason Cram said he's been playing classic games at Funspot his whole life. He said classic gaming is different than the popular console games of today. He said there was more of an emphasis on gameplay in the old days.

“A lot of people that play new games, I've heard them say 'Oh. The old games, those are too easy,' but they haven't really played some of these games to see how hard they really are,” Cram said.

Cram said he's good friends with Nelson, and they're always neck and neck in the rankings.

“It's just fun competition,” Cram said.

Nelson said they can also be happy for each other when they win, unlike some others who play.

“If he comes in first and I come in last, I wouldn't be happier,” Nelson said. “I guess I could be happier. But I would be happy for him.”

ACAM Returns To PAX-East In 2014

Tue, 04 Mar 2014 05:00:00 GMT

The American Classic Arcade Museum (ACAM) is proud to announce that we are returning to PAX-East. As in past years, we will be providing PAX-East with a retro arcade full of classic 1970's and 1980's arcade video games.

In 2010, the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) held their first East Coast event in Boston after running a hugely successful event for many years in Seattle. Gary Vincent, President of The American Classic Arcade Museum, had first been approached by the promoters of the Expo in late 2009 to help create an exhibit of classic arcade games at the first PAX-East. The American Classic Arcade Museum had become a powerful presence, and having the Museum create the exhibit for PAX-East seemed logical to the event organizers. Gary and the ACAM crew took 21 video games to the Expo in 2010 and set up a small arcade in a private room off of the main Expo floor.

Over the last few years as the PAX-East event has grown, the ACAM presence has grown along with it. This year, ACAM will have two 24-foot trucks & a panel van stuffed with close to 50 arcade games & a small army of staffers. ACAM will also be holding two panel sessions with video game industry insiders and former arcade game developers.

Mike Stulir, Vice President of The American Classic Arcade Museum, couldn’t be happier with the ACAM & PAX-East has collaborated throughout the history of the event. “We love working with the PAX-East staff to provide a glimpse into the arcade gaming environment of yesterday. PAX-East has become our annual time to pull out all of the stops and recreate the feeling of the late 1970’s to early 1980’s with a darkened room complete with disco lighting and booming with era-appropriate music."

Stulir says that the Museum is able to participate in events like PAX-East, MAGFest and Escapist Expo due to the notoriety and respect the Museum has earned since its founding. “Our position as the leader in arcade game historical preservation is due to the hard work of Gary Vincent, Bob Lawton, our Board of Directors and our volunteers. We have built a strong reputation not just with the gaming community, but with the game developers as well. We are especially proud of our close relationship with the PAX-East staff, and we expect to be part of this show for many years to come."

The concept of the Museum came almost by accident. ACAM is located within the Funspot Family Entertainment Center in Weirs Beach, NH. Having been a manager at the Funspot for many years, Gary and Funspot owner Bob Lawton were looking at all of the old video games they had back in 1996. Many of them were not in use on the floor anymore. Gary said “We have so many, we should start a museum.”

And that’s exactly what they did.

ACAM was founded and established as the first 501c3 non-profit facility dedicated to the preservation, history and play of classic arcade games. Today, The American Classic Arcade Museum encompasses almost all of Funspot’s third level. It also helped Funspot become the recognized as the largest arcade in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records. Over the years as more machines were added by being purchased or donated, the American Classic Arcade Museum soon became the Mecca for arcade game enthusiasts, and the merely curious. It is now the largest collection of fully operational video games from the 1980s in the world. In fact, every year players from around the world come to Funspot to play in the Museum’s International Classic Video Game Tournament. The museum has gained national and international recognition being highlighted in ESPN: The Magazine, MSNBC, EDGE Magazine, Retro Gamer, The Escapist, Yankee Magazine, in-flight airline publications and locally in NH to DO magazine & The Boston Globe. ACAM has also been the backdrop for several feature films, including the critically acclaimed “King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.”

To learn more about The American Classic Arcade Museum, or to find out how you can contribute to our preservation efforts, visit http://www.classicarcademuseum.org

ACAM Panel Sessions For PAX-East 2014

ACAM – How Arcade Games Influenced Home Console Gaming

Saturday, April 12th, 2014

Boston Convention & Exhibition Center -- Arachnid Theatre @ at 2:00pm

The American Classic Arcade Museum (ACAM) takes a look at how classic arcade games influenced video gaming at home. From Asteroids to Zaxxon, the arcade hits eventually made their way to home consoles and computers. What were the obstacles of translating arcade classics for home consoles? How did those games affect the arcades? Guests include the developers of multiple Atari 5200/7800 console games and the co-creator of the Atari 7800 home console.

Moderator:

Mike Stulir: Vice President, The American Classic Arcade Museum

Panelists & Special Guests:

Steve Golson: Co-creator of the Atari 7800 console
Jonathan Hurd: Creator of Atari’s “Food Fight” arcade game
Carlos Smith: Programmer of Atari 5200/7800 games
Marshall Peck: Graphic Artist for Atari 5200/7800 games
Gary Vincent: President, The American Classic Arcade Museum

ACAM – Preserving Laserdisc Arcade Games

Sunday, April 13th, 2014

Boston Convention & Exhibition Center -- Arachnid Theatre @ at 12:30pm

One of the most popular exhibits in the ACAM arcade at PAX-East is the laserdisc games. Titles like Space Ace, Dragon’s Lair, Us vs. Them and Cliffhanger are constantly mobbed by attendees. What exactly goes into keeping this unique classic arcade game technology running? How does ACAM preserve the gameplay of these unique games? Join ACAM staff and Warren Ondras from the "Daphne" emulation & "Dexter" hardware replacement projects for a discussion of laserdisc preservation technology and a demonstration of the unique technical challenges faced when restoring games of this type.

Moderator:

Mike Stulir: Vice President, The American Classic Arcade Museum

Panelists & Special Guests:

Warren Ondras: Daphne/Dexter Development Team
Gary Vincent: President, The American Classic Arcade Museum

ACAM Shines at 12th Annual MAGfest

Thu, 09 Jan 2014 05:00:00 GMT

ACAM recently participated in MAGFest for the third time. The 2014 edition was held January 2nd-5th at the Gaylord Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor Maryland. The resort is one of the most beautiful facilities I have ever visited. Like prior years, the resort was still bathed in Christmas lighting and decorations, adding an even more festive feel to an already festive event.

The Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, home of MAGFest.

MAGFest is four days of gaming, music, panels, movies, vendors & fun. Gaming includes console games, classic computer games, card games, and an arcade that is second only to ACAM in terms of quantity of games.

MAGFest is a very different event for ACAM. Unlike our appearances at other major gaming events, comic book shows, etc., ACAM does not provide any of the games. The massive collection of arcade games at MAGFest come from a number of sources including games owned by the show and games from local area collectors. Combined, the quantity of games rivals that of an event like California Extreme.

Dane Tullock during his 33 million point run on Robotron: 2084.

Since we do not provide games, we attend in a support role since so many of our friends are involved in the planning, management and operation of the event. In the past, we have assisted with photo-documenting the event, repairs of games, and speaking to the press regarding the importance of such a massive fan event. For the 2014 edition of the festival, ACAM worked with the show staff and some top notch Robotron:2084 players to attempt a 100 million point marathon.

Our two Robotron: 2084 competitors, Jacob Golson and Dane Tullock.

The Robotron Bash marathon was the idea of Dane Tullock. Dane is a top Robotron player and had wanted to make a 100 million point attempt at ACAM or in our exhibit at PAX-East. Doing so within ACAM or at a trade show presented some unique challenges that would be difficult to overcome. However, with MAGFest open 24 hours per day over the course of four days, a lot more time would be available for players to achieve the 100 million point goal. It seemed clear that MAGFest was the best place to hold the marathon.

Jacob Golson plays Robotron:2084 while his father Steve Golson cheers him on.

I ran the idea past Nick Marinelli, one of the main guys involved in MAGFest & David Hernly, ACAM’s official scorekeeper. Between the three of us & Dane Tullock, we hatched a plan to have multiple players make the attempt at the show.

We eventually decided on three players. Dane would be the first player. The second player is Jacob Golson, a 16-year-old high school student from Massachusetts whose scores have been on a steady climb. Player three was to be Darrin Cormier of DeKalb, IL.

The first day of competition was the second day of the festival. MAGFest had set up an elevated stage in the middle of the arcade with three Robotron cabinets for ACAM & Aurcade to officiate the scoring. MAGFest also provided Internet connectivity and ACAM provided the cameras, equipment and infrastructure to stream the gameplay on Dane’s Twich.TV channel.

Jacob Golson stares down the Robotron:2084 machine during his 11 million point run.

Unfortunately, we found out that day that Darrin had to cancel and would not be attending. That left the stage to Dane as Jacob would not be arriving until the next day. Dane managed to put up an impressive 33,341,475 points over the course of 8 hours. Dane had stopped for a break, but miscalculated time and the amount of extra men he had earned. By the time he noticed he was down to his last few men, he quickly went back to playing but never recovered.

Jacob Golson arrived with his father Steve (the co-creator of Ms. Pac-Man) late Friday night and started play on Saturday. After two practice rounds of approx.. 4 million points, Jacob played his best game ever and achieved his first-ever score rollover with 11,838,325 points.

Jacob and Dane continually pushed each other, but they were not able to push past the scores listed above. Later during the event, they cranked the game difficulty up to 10 and worked to show off the best of their skills. At one point, they were even playing cooperatively with one player controlling movement and the other controlling the firing. Despite how difficult this sounds, they were able to put up some impressive numbers. We were so encouraged by this that we are now discussing some potential rules for doing cooperative play at a future event.

Despite some minor hiccups with broken game hardware, lighting and background noise, all involved consider the Robotron Bash to be a success and we will probably do it again next year.

We had a surprise on the stage on Saturday night. Famed Donkey Kong player Hank Chien agreed to come up on the ACAM stage for a while and play with people in the crowd. That was a lot of fun.

Youmee Im, Hank Chien, ACAM VP Mike Stulir & David Hernly on the ACAM stage.

Aside from all of the gaming at MAGFest, concerts are a big part of the festival. Unfortunately, the only concert we were able to catch was our friend Tim White of D&D Sluggers.

We also attended the RetrowareTV panel put on by our friends John Delia and Joey DeSena.

The aftermath of MAGFest. See you next year!!

What Is MAGFest?

Short for "Music And Gaming Festival," MAGFest is a four day long party dedicated to the appreciation of video game music, gaming of all types, and the gaming community. The festival runs 24 hours a day, and offers consoles, arcades, tabletop, LAN, live video game cover bands, chiptunes, vendors, guest speakers, and much much more.

It's not a convention, it's a festival!

What makes MAGFest unique is that it's a non-profit event run by fans for fans. There are no corporate sponsors, no over-crowded showfloors, and no top-secret-behind-closed-doors showings. MAGFest is built from the ground up to be a party-like atmosphere with focus on community and fan creations, which creates an environment that no other expo or convention can ever recreate.

How did MAGFest start?

MAGFest started in 2002, originally under the name "Mid-Atlantic Gaming Festival." Its volunteer force has worked tirelessly for over a decade to help it grow and mature to the point it is at today. It has exploded in size from its original 300 attendees, to 9000 in 2013. 12,000 or more attendees are expected for MAGFest 12 in January 2014.

Who runs MAGFest?

MAGFest is run by MAGFest, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the appreciation of games and video game music. MAGFest Inc.'s main method of achieving this goal is to create events which provide a means for people to enjoy games, as well as musical concerts. We hold several different events throughout the year, including Bit Gen Gamer Fest, MAGStock, and our touring concert series Game Over.

SPECIAL THANKS:

DANE TULLOCK: Your passion is what led to this event, and we are all very pleased with how it came together.

JACOB & STEVE GOLSON: Jacob put on an impressive display and he should be very proud of his forst score rollover. It is wonderful to see younger players embracing the games of yesterday. Steve, as always, it was a pleasure to spend time with you. Thank you for bringing Jacob to MAGFest to participate in the Robotron Bash.

ETHAN O’TOOLE, “BUFFETT” & THE ENTIRE ARCADE DEPT. AT MAGFEST: Thank you guys for making sure we had games to play and helping us when we had issues.

NICK MARINELLI: Thank you for your support to bring some top caliber players to MAGFest for a unique scoring challenge. We are very happy to have you as a friend and partner.

GARY VINCENT: Our fearless leader at ACAM. Thanks for your work behind the scenes to make this event happen.

DAVID HERNLY: When scorekeeping in arcade gaming was circling the bowl, David developed the proper scoring system that the gaming community had deserved for many years. David, thank you for making sure that live event scoring is done right. ACAM is fortunate to have you as a partner in what we do.

ACAM Showcases At GraniteCon 2013

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Pac-man Fever Returns

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Weirs Beach Tournament Draws Fans Of Pioneering Arcade Games,
Features Performances By "Chiptune" Bands

At one point games like Frogger, Pac-Man and Centipede were brand new, full of levels not yet reached and fingerwork still untested.

The tunes would linger in your brain, really getting in there and making themselves at home long after game over.

MAKING MUSIC: As part of a genre known as chiptune, D&D Sluggers meld traditional rock instruments like electric guitars and synthesizers with sounds from home video game consoles and arcade machines. The group will play the annual Classic Video Game Tournament at Funspot Family Entertainment Center and American Classic Arcade Museum in Weirs Beach.

These machines defined cutting edge, and every kid had to go to the arcade and play them.

"And just like anything, it goes through a transition," said Gary Vincent, president of the American Classic Arcade Museum at Weirs Beach. "And then it becomes, 'Oh, yeah, it's kind of okay.' Then it becomes passe, then it becomes junk. And then all of a sudden, it becomes collectable. And then collectable gets rolled into 'classic'."

And that's where we're at. Which is why it's no surprise that for the past 14 years the International Classic Video Game Tournament has been a success. The four day event will run Thursday, May 30, from noon to 10 pm; Friday and Saturday, May 31 and June 1, from 10 am to 11 pm and Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm at The Funspot Family Entertainment Center on Route 3 in Weirs Beach, where the arcade museum also resides.

Chiptune Bands

Helping to make the old new again at this year's tournament will be the bands D&D Sluggers and CrunkWitch. Playing in a genre known as "chiptunes," these musicians create songs not only by sampling sound from classic Gameboys, Play Station 2s, Commodores and Amigas, but using the sound chips as their instruments.

"It sounds very eight-bit, early '80s-arcade backing music," Vincent said. "I know that D&D Sluggers mixes in guitar as well." Vincent said he first heard the band, one of only 200 active chiptune bands in the country, at the The Escapist Expo 2012 in Durham, N.C.

"And I thought, 'Wow this is really upbeat, fun music, and these are two really high-energy guys. When you sit and you talk with them, they are very mellow and laid back. It's a very exciting show for a two-person group."

Tim White and Dustin Overcash make up the North Carolina-based band. White said though chiptune has been around for awhile, the genre's always been a bit underground.

"It was kind of a hobbyist thing," he said. "For the most part there's a really, really wide range now from people who are hobbyists all the way up to full-fledged touring bands and the like."

While D&D Sluggers is more chiptune-meets-rock and roll, many chiptune artists find a home in the electronic music scene, while others actually are using it to make scores for video games and small independent films.

"A lot of people treat it like it's a niche, but really it's just a different way to go about creating music. It's just another tool," White said. "I do like that there are more people treating it as such."

The tournament itself will feature competitive play on 15 classic game titles and five games in the annual Manufacturer's Challenge. Vincent said he gets garners coming in from around the world for the event.

MUNCHING & LEAPING: The chance to check out classic animated characters like Pac-Man and Frogger once more will draw video game enthusiasts to the Lakes Region for an annual tournament.

Hitting the Road

"People are making this a vacation," he said. "Instead of just coming for one day of the tournament, they are coming for all four days. Some are arriving the week before and staying two weeks.

"You know a lot of the people who compete in the tournament... were teenagers when these games first came out. So now you've got these guys who are 40 to 50 coming out with their wives and kids in tow, and they just make it a family vacation."

To keep a level playing field, tournament games will not announced until the first day of the event. In addition to the prizes awarded for the Tournament and the Manufacturer's Challenge, the top score set on each of the 15 main tournament games and the five manufacturer's tournament games also will garner prizes. In addition to monetary prizes there also will be a commemorative trophy.

Cost to compete in the tournament is $60 and includes 250 game tokens. The first 100 registrants receive a commemorative T-shirt and goodie bag. Register at the door.

Reprinted from the Union Leader

Arcade Wizards

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Classic Gamers Jockey For Record Scores At ACAM's 15th Annual
International Classic Videogame Tournament

Shortly before 10AM yesterday, a small horde of young and middle-aged men in T-shirts and baggy shorts gathered outside the entrance to the American Classic Arcade Museum in Weirs Beach. A thick blanket of heat had descended, and beads of sweat began to form on some of their brows as they chatted with each other.

It was the third and penul-timate day of the 15th annual International Classic Video Game Tournament, and spirits seemed high.

Drew Shadrawy, an abuse counselor from Boston, stood holding an iced coffee and a muffin. He said this was his fourth year of attending the tournament.

"When I first came in here, honestly, as geeky as it sounds, I almost cried," he said. "It was basically like a time machine, all these games, and they're all in perfect order."

Shadrawy learned of the competition from the 2007 documentary film The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, much of which took place inside the museum, which is housed on the third floor of Funspot, across the street from Lake Winnipesaukee.

“When I first came in here, honestly, as geeky as it sounds, I almost cried. It was basically like a time machine, all these games, and they're all in perfect working order."

Drew Shadray of Boston

For $60, contestants are given 250 tokens and four days to log the highest scores on an array of classic arcade games. The selection varies each year and is disclosed only at the start of the tournament, to avoid giving any one player an upper hand. Top finishers win several hundred dollars and bragging rights.

But Shadrawy, like others, said winning isn't what draws him back each year.

"It's really something for me that's not about competition," the 39-year-old said. "It's more about just being part of this tournament, having fun."

Part of the fun each year, he said, is stumbling upon a game he hasn't seen or played in decades.

"Like this game, Jail Break. I didn't even remember it, and then I walked up to it and I was like, 'Holy " Shadrawy said. "I haven't played that game since I was 11 years old. And what's even weirder about it is when I get on it, all these memories flood back."

The doors opened as he spoke, and the group streamed inside to a dim, air-conditioned room filled with old games, a small miniature golf course and the melody of jingling coins. A wall of tournament machines was roped off in the center.

After a brief introduction during which someone joked about awarding a fourth place finalist with a slobbery smooch, the men swarmed the machines.

A scoreboard displayed dozens of names, but Mike Stulir, a volunteer and board member of the museum, said it was too early to stress over who was on top.

"Usually the first day or two is just kind of feeling every-thing out, putting you in front of a game you've never played before, learning the ins and outs," he said. "Today is really the start of when we'll begin to see people move ahead."

Nick Lombardo of Long Island watched as everyone be-gan to play. He said he has at-tended the tournament every year since 2006. "It's like going to a high school reunion that you weren't invited to," he said. "Like you just kinda walked in or are working as a bartender."

For example, Lombardo said, there was a guy one year wearing a denim jacket that said "New England Pinball Champion 1985."

"People were like, 'Oh my god, how've ya been!' "he said. 'And he was like, 'Yeah, my son is in college,' and stuff like that."

Robert MacAuley of Australia said it was his fourth tour-nament and sixth visit to the museum. He estimated he had spent about 20 hours on the plane to get there.

"I grew up with these games, and we have nothing like this back home," he said. "I get a chance to see how I measure up to basically the best in the world. But I also get to catch up with friends I haven't seen all year."

MacAuley said many of the contestants hang out in the evenings, for food or a beer.

David Hernly, a volunteer from Virginia who is in charge of score keeping, chimed in. "The secret to a lot of these classics is, they don't have graphics like today, they don't have sound like today, what they have is game play," he said. "They're fun. They're challenging. That's why Pac-Man is still being played."

Komax's Flower at ACAM - quite possibly the only working unit in the world.

About 10:45AM, a smattering of contestants huddled near a door by the registration table. One of the trademarks of the tournament is a mystery game of the day, and according to museum president Gary Vincent, the one he was about to unveil was going to be good.

"If anyone here has ever heard of this game, I'm going to be surprised," Stulir said.

The game was Flower, manufactured in 1986 by Komax. Vincent said it was the only game the company ever made.

The room was quiet for a moment. A few of the contestants looked around blankly.

"Never even heard of it," Fred Pastore of Massachusetts said. "Not me, no."

After some research, Lombardo explained the game. "You're a spaceship and you kill flowers," he said. "It was the '80s — they couldn't think of anything."

Before long, there was a line of six people waiting to play the game. "It's like the old days," Vincent said. "That's what it was like in the early '80s. A new game would come out, and you had to stand in line."

Vincent said he and others spent three years procuring parts and decals to refurbish the Flower machine. To the best of his knowledge, he said, this is the only operational model in the world.

Reprinted from the Concord Monitor

ACAM PAX East 2013 Video Game Panel Filmed on 03/23/13

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Behind The Scenes With ACAM - PAX East 2013 Filmed 03/13

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

BYT Video of the Week: Becoming a Pinball Wizard at Magfest

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 05:00:00 GMT

ACAM Provides Arcade For Escapist Expo

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

The Escapist & ACAM: A Door Opens

January 23rd, 2012 started out just like any other winter day… until this arrived in my email:

So it turns out that The Escapist is holding its own Expo this year and I was hoping to have a classic arcade there. You wouldn't happen to know anyone who might be able to do such a thing, would youuuuuuuu? Someone terribly tall and handsome, preferably. :)

This message came to me from my longtime friend Susan Arendt, who is the Executive Editor of The Escapist. I’m sure that if you are reading this, you already know that The Escapist is one of the leading web publications that celebrate the gaming lifestyle. Susan and I met over ten years ago and we have been friends ever since.

I have no doubt that Susan was aware of two things when she sent me that message. The first is that she is one of the few people that I would do absolutely anything for. The second is that her use of flattery will get her everywhere. In any event, we traded some e-mail and talked on the phone for a while in general terms about what Escapist Expo would be all about and how The American Classic Arcade Museum (ACAM) could fit in.

Allison Harn and Jose Mireles of The Escapist

The ACAM facility is a highly sought-after resource, and that affords us the opportunity to be selective about who we partner with. Aside from being part of the biggest and best classic arcade in the world, we constantly receive inquiries and requests. We invest massive resources into saving and preserving arcade games. We have a fully interactive “hands-on” arcade with over 300 completely playable coin-operated games. We provide research materials to journalists. We host groups of college students from many local Universities when they need to study the birth of gaming.

We work with the original game developers on preserving their legacy. With the recent explosion of major gaming events, we are now receiving countless invitations to provide games and historical exhibits for trade shows. Unfortunately most events don’t have a good grasp of the overwhelming costs involved to bring games to a show. When discussions actually get going, event planners tend to back off once they are aware of what is involved to move games cross-country. However, once Susan and I discussed specifics of this event, it became clear that Escapist Expo was an event with huge potential and ACAM needed to be part of it.

At that point, I brought some other ACAM staffers into the mix. Our President, Gary Vincent, was the first person brought into the loop. I introduced him to Susan during the GameX convention that ACAM attended in Philadelphia, PA back in 2009. Gary was very impressed with her at that time, and once I explained what Susan wanted from us for Escapist Expo, he was fully on-board with trying to bring an arcade to their event. ACAM volunteers Scott Gaulin and David Hernly were also brought into the discussion for their feedback and expertise, as they would be attending the show with us.

All of these conversations led to a face-to-face meeting at PAX-East. Gary and I met with Susan Arendt and Janelle Bonanno, who is the Business Development Manager for The Escapist. They were blown away by the environment we create at PAX-East to replicate what Saturday night was like at an arcade in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s. Gary and I also met separately with Greg Tito, the Senior Editor of The Escapist. At that point, it was clear that The Escapist and ACAM is a great fit, and we made a verbal commitment to attend the show.

We tabled discussions on the specifics of our Escapist Expo appearance until after our International Video Game Tournament, which is our big event that we have been running for the last 14 years. Once the tournament was over, I started making inquiries about costs for moving approximately 30 classic arcade machines from New Hampshire to North Carolina.

David Hernly of Aurcade (C) watches while Scott Gaulin of ACAM (R) gets an autograph from Warren Robinett

ACAM has our own large box truck, but we thought that bringing in a dedicated freight transportation company to move the games would be a better option considering the time and distance involved. The quotes came back from three companies that specialize in moving trade show exhibits and it became clear that we needed other options. The numbers were more than double what we anticipated.

However, we were determined to make this show work, so we started looking at alternatives. At the suggestion of David Hernly, we reached out to a man who prefers to only be known as “Buffett.” He provides a good chunk of the classic coin-op games for the MAGfest show in National Harbor, MD. Buffett lives in Virginia, and it was suggested that perhaps we could utilize his collection and significantly reduce the moving costs. After speaking with him, we came to an agreement on how to make it work, and I finalized ACAM’s commitment to Escapist Expo.

Everything was smooth sailing until just before the event when a decision was made to add a videogame development panel. That gave us less than three weeks to put something together. Our buddy Joey DeSena from RetrowareTV was tasked to be the moderator, and Gary & I were added as panelists. I felt we needed more than that, so I reached out to legendary game developer Warren Robinett. Warren is a former Atari programmer best known for Slot Racers and Adventure on the Atari 2600. Warren liked the idea of attending the show and he agreed to be our guest. photo of Mike Stulir, Joey Desena and Warren RobinettMike Stulir of ACAM (L) and Joey DeSena of Retroware TV (R) chat with Warren Robinett prior to the Classic Game Panel With all of the arrangements set in stone, we had no alternative but to play the waiting game until the day before the show.

Day 0: The Journey To Durham

I drove to Virginia to meet up with Buffett for loading & transporting the games. Gary & Scott flew from New Hampshire to the Raleigh/Durham Airport where The Escapist staffers Allison Harn and Jose Mireles were waiting to transport them to the hotel. Buffett and I arrived in Durham around 9pm. Unfortunately, we could not start setup of the games until 7am on Friday; a mere 5 hours before the start of the show. So, we left the truck of games in the satellite parking area and went to check in at the hotel.

Mike Stulir of ACAM (L) and Joey DeSena of Retroware TV (R) chat with Warren Robinett prior to the Classic Game Panel

Gary Vincent of ACAM poses with D&D Sluggers

We were all staying at the hotel attached to the convention center, the Marriott Durham City Center. Like all Marriott hotels I have stayed in, this was an outstanding facility, and it was very nice of The Escapist to put us up so close to the convention space. We checked in, and Scott went straight to bed since he worked overnight before the flight. Gary, Buffett and I took a little time to check out the Durham Convention Center and acquaint ourselves with the layout. After a quick dinner in the hotel lounge, we headed to bed so we could get an early start.

Day 1: An Incredible Experience

Friday morning, we brought the truck to the loading dock, and furiously worked to unload the games, move them into position and give them all a good cleaning. The 2000% humidity in the area that morning added greatly to the fun. Also, we had to meet with the electricians who ran extra power drops into the arcade area. Thankfully, ACAM was placed on the main show floor. Since we were out in the open with a bunch of other exhibitors, we did not do our usual retro audio & light show like we do in our private room at PAX-East. Not having to set up the extra equipment saved us a lot of time. By 11am, we were mostly set up, so Gary and I went back to our respective hotel rooms to prepare for our panel session at noon.

As soon as we returned, we met up with panel moderator Joey DeSena from RetrowareTV. We then found the guest of honor, legendary Atari game designer Warren Robinett.

Gary and I had some time to speak with Warren for a few minutes before the panel, and we discussed some of the intricacies of designing games in the limited space available on the Atari 2600, and some of the non-gaming work he has done. We also familiarized him on the work we do at ACAM.

The panel was focused mostly on the preservation work done by ACAM, and Warren’s stories about development back in the heyday of the Atari 2600. I will have to admit that I was a bit worried about attendance for this panel. We were the first panel scheduled on the first day of the convention, and I had concerns that there would not be a lot of people at the show that early. Boy, was I wrong. The room was easily 90% full, and we ended up going over our allotted time due to all of the great questions. The panel was a huge success, and the attendees all came up to shake Warren’s hand when the panel concluded.

For me, one of the most rewarding aspects of my work for ACAM is getting to know the former developers when we do panels, or build displays for the Museum. Warren was one of the most charming people we have had appear with us at a show, and we could not have been more thrilled and proud to have him with us.

After the panel was over, we took Warren over to meet some of The Escapist staff before he had to leave. We were all pleased to hear that he would be back with his sons at some point over the weekend.

With Warren gone, Gary and I returned to the arcade on the main expo floor. David Hernly had arrived during the panel, so we were now fully staffed. What really amazed us early on was just how mobbed our arcade was. It was full almost immediately from the time the doors were opened. We had fears that Friday might be a slow day. With Escapist Expo counting on so many of the local college students to attend, I figured they would not be showing up until Saturday, Friday attendance turned out to be outstanding.

At the end of day one, we moved on to the evening party. The ACAM crew had been invited to the VIP event for the show. The party was held at the American Tobacco Campus, which was a two block walk from the convention center. The campus is a registered historic site with roots in the American Tobacco Factory established in the 1800s. The factory buildings have all been restored and repurposed for office space, restaurants and the stadium for the Durham Bulls baseball team.

The party was held in a beautiful courtyard underneath the smokestack for the old Lucky Strike cigarette factory. The weather was perfect for an outdoor party. The crushing life-sucking humidity from earlier in the day had subsided and we partied outdoors as the sun went down. After an awesome meal of BBQ Ribs & BBQ Turkey, Gary and I spent hours mingling with the other exhibitors, panelists & special guests for the show. Most of my time was spent meeting a number of people participating in the show, and visiting with all of the people I worked with at The Escapist to arrange ACAM’s appearance including Susan Arendt, Janelle Bonanno, Greg Tito & Greg Lincoln. Gary did the same and also spent a lot of time with one of the musical acts appearing at the Expo, D&D Sluggers.

Escapist Expo party at the American Tobacco Campus

I cannot thank The Escapist crew enough for holding this party. It was so nice to have a chance away from the show floor to meet the other exhibitors and guests, and having the party in a location that celebrates the history of the Durham, NC area was a great idea.

Day 2: The Show Continues

Day two of the show was even busier than day one. The show floor was completely full, and there were lines of people waiting to play the games. I wish I could contribute some incredible stories of the day, but we were so busy, we weren’t too aware of what else was going on around the show. I was told by a show staffer that the show was so busy that that they had to stop letting people in the door at several points during the day so as not to exceed the capacity of the building.

With the end of day two, Gary, Scott, David, Buffett and I set out to soak up some of the local nightlife. We found this bar called Bull City Burger & Brewery, where we had some awesome burgers and some great beer that they brew right there in the bar. I highly recommend their Gateway Golden Ale.

We returned to the convention center for the evening entertainment which included the costume contest and the D&D Sluggers concert. We met up with Joey DeSena and we also spent a lot of time talking with Greg Tito and Schuyler Dievendorf of The Escapist. Unfortunately, my back had been bothering me since Buffett and I loaded the truck several days before, so I was having a hard time standing in the concert hall. I elected to relax in the hotel lounge with Joey, David & Buffett. Gary & Scott stayed for the concert and had a wonderful time.

Day 3: The Finale

Day three was a shock to us. We could not believe how fast time had passed, and the show was almost over. The main expo floor was still quite full. Warren Robinett returned today with his sons Ballard & Tai. We were thrilled he came back and we got to spend some more time with him, and his kids seemed to love the games. David had to head home mid-afternoon on Sunday, so we said our goodbyes and he went off on his way.

There was a rumor floating around the show vendors that the street fair running outside of the convention center would not be over until 5pm, and the streets would not be open to get our trucks to the loading dock until 7pm. The rumor turned out to be true. When the show ended at 4pm, we packed up all of our materials and prepped the games for loading. That left us with 90 minutes to kill, so we headed off to the hotel lounge for dinner.

We returned 45 minutes later, and still had no update for when the streets would be reopened. After looking outside and noticing that most of the street vendors had not left yet, we were worried we were in for a long wait. We struck up a conversation with two of the Durham Police Department officers that were doing crowd control, and they agreed to help us get the truck to the dock. Buffett and I walked to the satellite parking area several blocks away to get the truck, and the Durham PD assisted us in navigating all of the blocked off streets to get our truck to the dock. That was incredibly awesome of them to help us out. The Durham PD was also doing security at the show, and all of the officers we encountered were wonderful.

Gary, Scott, Buffett and I loaded up the truck. By the time we finished, the streets had reopened and we took the truck back to the satellite parking area. After a quick celebratory toast at the hotel lounge to honor the success of the show, we headed to bed.

Day 4: The Aftermath & The Long Ride Home

Gary and Scott flew back to New Hampshire on Monday morning. Buffett and I took the truck of games back to his home in Virginia on Monday afternoon, and after unloading everything, I continued the trip home to Philly.

Reflecting on everything that happened at the show while I was driving home, I feel I can declare the show a complete success on all counts. Gary, Scott and I were all in agreement that this was the most fun we have had at an event since ACAM started appearing at shows. Moving 28 games (that weigh around 300 pounds each) is a huge task. The Escapist crew made everything so easy for us, and the attendees showed us that all of the work was worth it.

The masterminds of ACAM's appearance at Escapist Expo -- From left: ACAM President Gary Vincent, Business Development Manager for The Escapist Janelle Bonanno, Executive Editor for The Escapist Susan Arendt, Director of ACAM Mike Stulir.

It was awesome being at an event that was more intimate, and allowed us to interact more directly with the attendees. Events like PAX-East may be awesome for ACAM from an exposure and business-development standpoint, but they are not ideal for interaction with attendees due to the size of the crowds. Being part of the main expo floor at Escapist Expo gave us a tremendous amount of one-on-one time with the attendees, and that allowed us to provide a better exhibit.

The feedback we have received since attending this event has been stellar. If The Escapist decides to make this an annual event, it goes without saying that we will attend.

In closing, I would like to offer special thanks to the following people:

ACAM Staff/Volunteers & Other Contributors:

Gary Vincent – For continuing to be ACAM’s driving force & visionary. ACAM’s appearances at these shows could not happen without his 30+ years of arcade operation experience.

Scott Gaulin – It is always rewarding to work with Scott, and I was thrilled he was able to make the trip.

David Hernly – While we did not run a tournament that required our scorekeeper, David made the trip anyway and volunteered his time to interact with the people playing our games. Thanks David!

John McGray – John is our graphic design wizard and goes out of his way to make ACAM’s promotional materials & presentations look incredible. Thanks for all that you do!

Warren Robinett – Wow, was it fun to do a panel discussion on gaming history with the creator of one of the most popular games on the Atari 2600. Warren, it was a pleasure and an honor to have you join us.

“Buffett” – He loaned us games from his personal collection and came to the show to help us with any service issues that popped up.

Bob Lawton & Funspot – If it were not for the generosity of Bob Lawton & his family, ACAM could not exist. Thank you to Funspot for giving ACAM the floor space we need to operate the museum and preserve gaming history.

Joey DeSena – It is always a pleasure to see the crew from RetrowareTV and it was great to collaborate on the panel discussion.

Lorien Green – Thank you for all of your social media advice and assistance. You have been a huge asset and great friend to ACAM.

The Escapist Staff:

Janelle Bonanno – When Susan Arendt first told me that I would be working with Janelle for some aspects of the show, she said to me “You are going to love Janelle.” After getting to know her, I found that Susan was absolutely right. In fact, if there were a way to steal her away to work for ACAM, I would do it in a heartbeat. Her energy level, passion and enthusiasm continue to amaze me, and I hope we get a chance to work together again.

Greg Tito – Greg was responsible for putting together the panel on classic gaming, and I cannot thank him enough for making sure classic games were represented at the show.

Greg Lincoln – Greg was always checking in with us to see how things were going and if we needed anything. He provided an awesome level of service, and that was greatly appreciated.

Allison Harn, Elisa Murciano & Jose Mireles – Thanks for overseeing all of our transportation needs. That took a huge burden off of our shoulders, and we are very grateful for your help.

Tom Kurz and Alex Macris – Co-Founders of Themis Media, the parent of The Escapist. You have built one of the finest gaming communities on the web, and ACAM is proud to be part of it.

Susan Arendt – There are not enough good things to say about Susan. I have been blessed to have her as a friend for many years, and she is one of the most giving and selfless people I know. She ran herself ragged all weekend trying to keep everything running smoothly, and somehow, she made it all look easy. She constantly puts the needs of others ahead of her needs, and she does not seek out attention or fame for herself. To me, this is one of the best qualities a person can have. Plus, she always makes me laugh out loud. The reason that ACAM was able to attend this show was due to her desire to have the classics properly represented. Susan, thank you being a part of my life, and for being a valuable friend to ACAM.

Escapist Expo 2012

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

ACAM PAX East 2012 Video Game Panel

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 04:00:00 GMT

ACAM PAX East 2012 Pinball Panel

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Gaming's "Mecca" Hosts Classic Videogame Design Legends

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 05:00:00 GMT

On Sunday, November 14th 2010, The American Classic Arcade Museum (ACAM) held a reunion of former staffers from General Computer Corporation (GCC.) GCC was the company responsible for such classic arcade games such as Ms. Pac-Man & Junior Pac-Man for Midway, and Super Missile Attack, Quantum & Food Fight for Atari. GCC was also the organization that designed the hardware in the Atari 7800 home console, and programmed countless arcade game translations for home gaming systems.

The reunion came about after several former GCC staffers participated with ACAM at the PAX-East Gaming Expo last March. It was impossible for them to reconnect with all of the commotion at the show, so ACAM offered to hold a "GCC Day" inside the ACAM facility. While the GCC staffers spent most of the day at ACAM playing games and catching up with each other, they spent time talking with the ACAM staff about the development of arcade games like Quantum and Ms. Pac-Man. We also saw some information for another GCC creation -- Nightmare; an unreleased coin-op arcade game that has been shrouded in mystery.

The event was attended by former GCC employees & classic game design legends such as Wat Hughes, Nancy Kackley, Betty & John Tylko, Glenn Parker, Tom Flaherty, Lucy Gilbert, Mike Feinstein, Tom Westberg, Doug Macrae, Steve Golson, Roland Janbergs, Bradford Hauser, Jonathan Hurd, Mike Horowitz, Brad Parker & Kevin Osborne. Bradford Hauser travelled all the way from Israel to reconnect with his former co-workers inside of the World's Largest Arcade.

Betty Tylko, designer of Atari’s “Quantum” arcade game

ACAM Board Member Mike Stulir was very pleased with the way it all came together. "It was an honor to have another group of classic gaming royalty spend a day in our facility. As the first and largest Museum dedicated to preserving classic arcade game history, we feel it is our duty to pay homage to Doug Macrae (l) and Roland Janbergs look at screen captures of GCC’s unreleased “Nightmare” arcade game the people behind these games which are an important piece of Americana. With our ties to the people that founded the videogame industry and our large established facility, I see no reason why we can't do more of these events in the future. 2010 has been a huge year for The American Classic Arcade Museum, and 2011 is shaping up to be even better."

ACAM could not exist without the help from people like you. As a 501c3 non-profit organization, we are completely dependant on tax-deductible donations of cash, parts, and all types of coin operated games & amusements. All donations go directly to maintaining our immense collection of games so they are constantly available for the public to enjoy. Donations also support our efforts to take the Museum "on the road" and appear at gaming events such as the annual PAX-East Expo in Boston. For more information about making a tax-deductible contribution to maintaining our games and our facility, please visit http://www.classicarcademuseum.org and see our "Donations" and "eBay Giving Works" pages.

Doug Macrae (l) and Roland Janbergs look at screen captures of GCC’s unreleased “Nightmare” arcade game

ACAM President Gary Vincent (l) and Funspot founder Bob Lawton (c) speak with the former GCC staffers at the start of the party

Repeatedly hailed as the "Mecca" of classic gaming by such organizations as MSNBC, Geek Out New York, The Thrillist, Joystiq, Yahoo!, and Edge Magazine, The American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot is the first 501c3 non-profit Museum dedicated to preserving and displaying vintage coin-operated amusements. In 2010, ESPN: The Magazine named The American Classic Arcade Museum as "One of the shrines every sports fan should visit" and Mashable Tech named The American Classic Arcade Museum as one of its "Top Ten Great Geek Destinations."

Jonathan Hurd, creator of Atari’s “Food Fight”

Founded in 1998 and incorporated as a 501c3 non-profit Museum facility in 2002, ACAM is located on the third floor of the immense Funspot Family Entertainment Super Center in Weirs Beach, NH. The museum celebrates the origins of the arcade industry with popular games from the past. Asteroids, Pac- Man, Centipede and Gorgar are just a few of the nearly 300 games in the classic arcade museum. The museum also contains static displays of game history and the walls feature artwork of vintage arcade games. In June 2008, Guinness World Records named Funspot/ACAM the largest arcade in the world. Roughly 350,000 people pass through our facility each year, which is open every day of the year except Christmas. Visit www.ClassicArcadeMuseum.org for more information and directions.

Steve Golson – co-creator of Midway’s “Ms. Pac Man”

GCC Reunion group photo

Arcade Museum Celebrates 1980s

Sat, 22 May 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Who could have guessed that putting 250 ancient video arcade mechanisms in one place would open a temporal wormhole for aging gamers to relive their wasted youth? That's the American Classic Arcade Museum.

Calling it a museum is not quite right. While it does have exhibit cases of gaming artifacts and memorabilia along the outer walls -- we were particularly impressed by the Pac-Man Halloween costume display -- it's mostly an actual, operating arcade.

That makes it even better.

Not that the American Classic Arcade Museum doesn't have potential pitfalls. It could become just another place where the formerly young elevate their days-of-yore at the expense of the days-of-now. But while we were there, we didn't hear anyone waxing poetic about the purity of 2-D graphics or the ambiance of computer chip music.

Old video arcade games didn't have the technology to be pretentious. They had to be simple and fun. Driving a tank around a glowing green wire-frame pyramid in Battlezone (1980) is no less engaging than crawling your way through hyper-real Stalingrad in Call Of Duty (2003), although you might have difficulty convincing a 25-year-old of that.

Still, for a generation that's only played Tetris and Space Invaders on a cell phone, this place could be enlightening.

It's Official! Bob Lawton and daughter, Sandra, accept the Guinness World Record for Largest Arcade In The World.

The museum currently operates over 250 machines on the game floor. There are many more in storage, and it's just one part of the much larger Funspot complex, certified by Guinness as the largest arcade in the world.

Bob Lawton was born in 1931 and co-founded Funspot in 1952. He's still here, every day, and he still plays; his favorite machines are Rally-X -- one of the earliest full-color games -- and KISS pinball. So does Gary Vincent, who oversees the museum.

Gary came to work at Funspot as a teenager in 1981 and never left. He's proud of the museum, and especially proud that it's a working Golden Age video arcade. "You can stand here and close your eyes and listen," he said, "and it's 1983 all over again."

A constant stream of Pat Benatar, Duran Duran, and other early 1980s pop mainstays plays over loudspeakers, although Gary admits that he doesn't crank it up to 1980s arcade volume ("It's like Disney," he concedes. "Real but not real."). But the clanking of quarters (well, tokens) spilling from the change machine is real enough, as are the goofy, overlapping sound effects from hundreds of machines: the base-heavy uh-eh uh-eh uh-eh of Space Invaders, the gowah gowah gowah of a gobbling Pac-Man, the Bee-ee-ee-ee-you! death dirge from Frogger.

To some, it sounds like heaven.

"It's surprising how many people play," said Bob. "They'll bring their own stools and they'll sit and they'll play, day after day. Sometimes you just can't move in here. It's amazing."

"Once," Gary recalled, "I overheard one guy say to another guy's kid, 'When your dad was your age he kicked ass on this game!'"

Row after row of upright cabinets beckon, with iconic ball-topped joysticks and cookie-size buttons on the control panels, and glowing coin slots on the front. Some of the machines are scuffed and stained, and not all of the games are working at any one time -- which also evokes the 1980s arcade experience. But most of the games are in good shape, ready to satisfy. We saw a hapless, foot-dragging summer employee shuffling around, emptying the coin boxes, and found it surprisingly nostalgic.

Along the way, Bob and Gary have had to relearn some forgotten video arcade tricks, such as covering the fluorescent light fixtures with red gel to darken the rooms. "If you don't," said Gary, "the screens look just terrible."

Behind the Red Baron and Roadblasters machines is the Classic Game Wall of Fame, enshrining players who have set world records at the museum's annual tournaments. Champions such as Donald Hayes (248,100 points on Super Cobra) and David Nelson (61,390 on Clowns) are among dozens of honorees. Each has a framed photo of themselves standing next to the machine that made him immortal.

Blast from the Past: Try finding one of these anywhere else — let alone one you can play. It's a genuine Road Blasters cockpit arcade game at the American Classic Arcade Museum.

Funspot is where Steve Wiebe scored almost a million points on Donkey Kong during the documentary The King of Kong. That machine, according to Gary, has become a Holy Grail among video arcade enthusiasts. "There's a core group of guys," he said, "that are bound and determined to crack that machine."

Bob and Gary show us some of the museum's oldest members, such as the glittery Computer Space from 1971, the first video arcade game (its monitor is actually an old black and white TV set, powered by vacuum tubes) and the ghoulish Death Race from 1976, which earned a spot on a "violent video games" 60 Minutes segment. "Bob and I are very proud of our Death Race," said Gary. "You kill people," added Bob, wide-eyed. "And they scream!"

Visitors not only get to see and touch games like Death Race, but play them as well. Rarities such as Up Scope and a triple-screen TX-1 invite the itchy-fingered, as does the possibly unique Whatizit from 1972, which forgoes video for a loop of battered 16mm film. There are hard-to-find color vector games such as Tempest and Star Wars, and impossible-to-find functioning Laser Disk games such as Astron Belt and the creepy Us Vs. Them.

The laser games arrived in 1983 and, according to Gary, usually failed after about three months of arcade use. Eventually there were no more spare parts to fix them. The museum has solved that problem by running its laser disk machines on PC emulators tucked inside the cabinets. "The games play probably 99 percent identical, but a thousand times more reliable," said Gary. "People can enjoy them again without seeing Disk Error on the screen."

Bob and Gary agree that the "classic" period of video arcade games ended in 1986, and so do most of the machines in the museum. The ability to keep these aging games running is what sets the museum apart from wannabe competitors. Funspot has its own repair shop, plenty of room, and a staff that's been working with these machines since they first arrived over 30 years ago.

"We just feel it's very important to save these games, and to have them playable," said Bob. "Nobody else has done that, and I don't think anybody else is gonna do that."

"The biggest thrill that we get," said Gary, "is when those first-time visitors come in the door and go, 'Wow!' When you can get a 'Wow' and then nothing else except a big, giant grin out of people, then you know you're doing something right."

The Museum Of Mario

Sat, 01 May 2010 04:00:00 GMT

In Weirs Beach, New Hampshire, childhood is just a token away.

When Gary Vincent ushers you up to the third floor of Funspot, the world's largest arcade, in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire, he knows he's welcoming you to the Promised Land. "The biggest joy I get," he says, "is the first-time visitor who comes up the stairs and they're like, 'Wow." What you behold is a carpal-tunnel-inducing Xanadu of 8-bit graphics and Casio keyboard soundtracks. More than 250 vintage coin-operated arcade games blink hypnotically in the dimly lit room, all of them still costing just a quarter to play.

In the late '70s and early '80s, arcade games were everywhere: grocery stores, laundromats, restaurants, really any place where a child might be left unattended for five minutes. But by the '90s the boom had faded, and most of these icons of youth were ushered off to the trash heap. Vincent, who had been working at Funspot since 1981, couldn't bear to see the arcade's vintage collection scrapped, so in 1998 he convinced owner Bob Lawton to let him open a museum - an honest-to-God, nonprofit, charity-bingo-funded museum - dedicated to preserving that moment in American history when a quarter was worth more than two dimes and a nickel and your ability to guide a frog safely through traffic was the criterion by which other children judged you.

The American Classic Arcade Museum is the largest public collection of these games anywhere, and it's become something of a pilgrimage site. Every year on the first weekend following Memorial Day, hardcore players from around the world travel here to square off in the International Classic Video Game Tournament (June 3-6 this year). Although Vin-cent loves their dedication, he says the museum is as much about regular people just looking to recapture a taste of their youth: "They'll come up here just to be like, 'Hey look, I'm 17 again,' when in fact 'I'm 45 and I'm losing my hair."

Fun Without The Sun

Sun, 14 Sep 2003 04:00:00 GMT

To drive the rolling roads around Lake Winnipesaukee is to risk arriving, entirely by mistake, in some other decade. The Moultonborough general store rears up out of the year 1781. The area's grandly named little motels pull you straight back to the 1950s. The motor ship Mount Washington has been carrying passengers around the lake since 1940. And then there is one little corner of Laconia where it is forever 1983, and robots are trying to take over the earth.

The robots are villains in the 20-year-old video game Robotron, and their home is the Funspot, a sprawling arcade and mini-golf center which among its many attractions has slowly become the single largest repository of out-of-circulation video games in the known world.

The Funspot complex in Weirs, NH.

It's hard to miss the Funspot, even if you are trying. Its cartoony green dragon blows smoke on billboards for miles around, advertising vast quantities of alarmingly wholesome family pleasure. What the Funspot does not advertise is the room on its third floor, above the 20 bowling alleys and the Skee-Ball and the D. A. Long Tavern, that holds a dense, blinking cluster of 185 working arcade games built between 1971 and 1987. There are people who travel to New Hampshire just to visit this, the Classic Game Room, where original units of Pac-Man, Centipede, Galaga, and Space Invaders Deluxe are arrayed side by side in their original pixilated glory, as if Diffrent Strokes were still on prime time and the second Reagan administration was still a distant vision.

"There is nothing else like this room, anywhere," says Gary Vincent, the manager of the Funspot and the man responsible for the fact that there are people in Finland who have come to visit a rambling arcade a half-mile from the edge of Lake Winnipesaukee, "And I've asked, believe me."

If you were not aware that there was such a thing as a "classic" video game, you are not alone. But if you are younger than 50 and once played video games and eventually stopped, bewildered by the hyper realistic fighting and cripplingly loud soundtracks, then you will understand the pull. At the peak of their popularity, video arcade games were novel and cute and went boing. They featured appealing characters like Pac-Man, Q*Bert, and the little frog in Frogger. When those games disappeared, a whole generation walked out of the arcade and never walked back in. Unless they stumbled into Funspot.

"You could go up there now, there could be a 50-year-old woman playing. There could be a 20-year-old guy," says Vincent. "If you come here on a weekend or rainy day, I'd say most of the people playing there are in the 25-to-45-year-old age group."

In a sense, the Funspot is a 55,000-square-foot testament to the idea that in a fast-moving world, you can go a long way just by standing still. In 1952, two brothers named Bob and John Lawton launched a small business at nearby Weirs Beach featuring a nine-hole indoor miniature golf course, ping-pong, and a half-dozen mechanical arcade games. They bought more arcade games. Needing room to expand, they settled on a parcel away from the beach. They bought a chain saw, cleared trees, and laid out a new outdoor miniature golf course, featuring hand-built wooden New Hampshire landmarks, that still stands today.

In the past four decades, the Funspot has branched out into every brand of kitsch diversion imaginable. There was Indian Village (1967-1983). There was Storybook Forest (1976-1984). "We used to have a beautiful slot-car track," says Vincent, dragging out the beautiful with appreciative gusto. It was eight lanes wide. "But one video game would pretty much make three times the amount of money as the slot-car track."

The first remote Funspot location in Port Richey, FL.

That was on the cusp of the 1980s, when video games seemed like an unstoppable juggernaut. So the Funspot undertook an ambitious plan. The Lawton brothers expanded to a half-dozen Funspots around New Hampshire and Maine. There was even a franchise in Port Richey, Florida - the first beachhead in a campaign to populate the nation with Funspots.

But youth culture changes as fast as youth does. Once there were scores of Indian villages, and now to find even one would be extraordinary. By the mid-'80s the bottom had dropped out of the arcade industry. Mall arcades shrank, then disappeared, and their owners raced one another to ditch their arcade rooms. As games became increasingly fast, violent, and more tightly targeted to teenage boys, tens of thousands of Pac-Man games, Defenders and Zaxxons were mothballed or auctioned off for low multiples of $20.

“...tens of thousands of Pac-Man games, Defenders and Zaxxons were mothballed or auctioned off for low multiples of $20.”

Then there was the Funspot. Through inertia or principled stubbornness, the Funspot held on to its original games, keeping them in working order for years. And years. When kids in Boston were paying 50 cents to blast away at three-dimensional zombies in the wide-screen game House of the Dead, kids in Laconia could still pay a quarter to slowly pilot a homesick frog across several lanes of highway traffic - if, that is, anyone wanted to.

"We took a lot of flak here for many years for the old games, from 1988 to about '99," says Gary Vincent. "People were like, 'What do you keep all these junk games for? Nobody plays them.' But we stuck to our guns."

In fact, Vincent did not merely stick to his guns: He had an idea. His idea was the first annual Funspot International Classic Video Game and Pinball Tournament, in 1999, which drew dozens of former video game champions out of their semivoluntary retirement to compete once again for high scores on Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Dig Dug. Word got around that there was a place in New Hampshire where you could find working versions of all these games.

"It went from 'Why do you have them?' to 'I can't believe you have this!'" says Vincent.

ACAM boasts a rare black and white Lunar Lander.

Vincent found himself taking phone calls from people who saw themselves as donors to a cause. Curt Vendel, who operates a website called the Atari History Museum, donated seven games, including an original Breakout. Another man offered Vincent a collection of 111 games. None of them worked, but the Funspot's head technician, Randy Lawton, has been around since Asteroids was a gleam in some programmer's eye, and he set to work. Now the arcade can boast a rare working version of Lunar Lander, the early black-and-white arcade classic that endlessly frustrated millions of teenagers in 1979.

Today, the catalog of Funspot games reads like the fantasy afternoon of a long-vanished adolescence: Joust, Tron, Galaxian, Qix, Tempest, Wizard of Wor. There are older black-and-white games like Sea Wolf and Space Invaders. Of course there is pinball. And floating through the room is a 1980s soundtrack of Run-DMC and the Romantics.

Enthusiasts of classic video games - and there are a lot - have pointed out that the variety and sheer creativity of early-'80s games is a direct result of the minuscule processing power available at the time. The brain of Tempest, very advanced for its day, wouldn't power a modern telephone. With realism out of the question, game designers compensated with an outrageous profusion of clever ideas. But the creativity wouldn't last.

"About mid-1987 was when the game Double Dragon came out," says Vincent mournfully. "It went from puzzle-type games, fanciful-type games, to nothing but players trying to beat each other to death. That, in my opinion, ended the whole innocence of the arcade industry."

While dozens of 30-somethings recapture that innocence on the Funspot's third floor, Gary Vincent's own headlong rush backward has taken on the energy of a crusade. The next step, as he sees it: nonprofit status. Vincent envisions a new addition to New Hampshire's roster of curious attractions, which he calls the Classic Arcade Museum. But even he concedes that "it's never going to make money, and that's a fact."

For now, the Funspot - and the Classic Game Room - is still a business and needs to behave like one. Vincent passed up the chance to buy a two-player version of Computer Space for $3,000. "How do you go to the company and say I want to spend $3,000 on a game that'll take in two, three bucks a week?" he says. "They'd look at me like I just sprouted a second head."

These days, if the classic game room is looking a little crowded, it's because dozens of games were evicted from a neighboring room to make way for simulated video golf, a grown-up pastime that attracts year-round golf leagues. And Vincent has his hands full as the manager of a center that employs, depending on the season, between 55 and 90 people. It all still seems extraordinary to a man who took a job as a teenager almost exactly 22 years ago.

"They said, 'Can you help us for the last four weeks of summer?'" he recalls, shaking his head. "Somehow, the last four weeks of the summer of '81 haven't ended yet."

For more information about the Funspot, call 603-366-4377 or visit www.funspotnh.com.

World's Oldest Video Game Champion Still Young At Heart

Thu, 13 Jan 2000 05:00:00 GMT

The Coronation Day Video Game Championship held at Funspot over the weekend was a homecoming of sorts for Doris Self, the world's oldest video game record holder. Now 74, Doris learned to water ski at Weirs Beach in the 1940s, taking lessons from Bob Lawton, Weirs Times publisher who, at that time, was giving water ski lessons at the Weirs. Self made history when, at the age of 58, set a new world record on Q*bert, one of the most popular games of the Classic Era of video games. Born in South Boston, Doris said that she was always active, having been a tennis player from an early age, and she says that there are few experiences in life that she missed out on. She has gone bungee jumping, parasailing and celebrated her 40th birthday by going surfing at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a few miles from where she currently lives.

"I've lived a very lucky, charmed life," said Self, who says that she can't believe how much the Lakes Region has changed from the 1940's when she first visited the area and learned how to water ski.

The one-time airline stewardess with Eastern Airlines says her interest in video games was sparked by a visit to a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Florida in the early 1980's. "My daughter started playing a video game while we were waiting for our pizza and came over to me and said 'Mom, try this. You'll like it.' So I started playing Q*Bert and that was the beginning of the end. I was hooked. My husband had just died and I was looking for things to do, so I zeroed in on Q*Bert," said Doris.

Doris enjoying a game on a Q*bert cocktail unit.Doris enjoying a game on a Q*bert cocktail unit.

She said that a 24-hour arcade was located only 10 minutes away from her home and she began making nightly visits there to improve her skills. "I'd wait until 11 at night and go over there and play the game. There were a lot of young people there and I had so much fun with the older teens. Sometimes I wouldn't get home until seven in the morning. But that's the way I am. When I get into something I go all the way."

And she discovered that the common perception of older adults regarding teen video game players was totally at odds with reality. "I never saw kids on drugs playing video games. They were a bunch of good kids, really bright and friendly and just fun to be around," says Doris.

She was such an intense competitor that she once broke a bone in her foot while playing and continued on despite the pain. And she kept getting better at the game. Even though she had no intention of becoming a competitor when she first started playing video games, she soon became so good at Q*Bert that by 1983 she owned the world record high score on the game and was honored for her feat at the Coronation Day Video Game Championship sponsored by the Twin Galaxies Arcade of Ottumwa, Iowa.

Doris says that video game legend Billy Mitchell and Walter Day of Twin Galaxies, the official video game scorekeeper for the arcade industry, and other video game players have stayed in touch with her over the years and that she still enjoys getting out to an arcade and having fun.

"My bridge partners think I'm crazy but I tell them they don't know how much fun they're missing," says Doris. She said that she traveled to Georgia for a video game tournament in the 1980s and ended up being put in the same hotel room with a 14-year-old contestant. "When we registered for the competition all they had was my last name and first initial. They didn't know there was a woman contestant. But there were no more rooms so we stayed together. I just told him to think of me as his grandmother," recalls Doris. When the competition was over both she and her 14-year-old friend took home prizes, a color television set and a giant panda bear. Guess who took home the panda bear? Doris, naturally.

Doris practicing her Q*bert skills.

Doris attended the Coronation Day Championship at the Funspot Family Entertainment Center this last weekend not as a competitor but as the recipient of a special honor for being the oldest video game record holder. She said that the new records in Q*Bert have been set in marathons, something she's not about to attempt at her age. "I can keep up with the younger people in a regular game but I'm afraid I would fall asleep after a while," says Doris.

Her life has been full and filled with a lot of travel to the far parts of the world but she also knows the other side of the coin, having lost her 47-year-old son Randall to diabetes last year. During the last four years she was his constant caretaker and says that it was a terrible experience to see the suffering he endured during that time. "He died while undergoing dialysis when I was out at a fast food store shopping for things for our next meal," says Doris, who said that she only realized after his death that the caretaking position had taken over virtually her whole life. She says that she plans to continue to travel and to have new experiences and to enjoy herself by getting out to play video games whenever she can. "I feel like I've packed four lifetimes into the years I've been around and don't plan to stop now," says Doris.

Editor's Note: Doris Self died in an automobile accident on October 3, 2006.

Billy Mitchell Achieves Perfect Pac-Man Score At ACAM

Sat, 03 Jul 1999 04:00:00 GMT

WEIRS BEACH, NH -- For the first time in video game playing history, a perfect score was achieved on the legendary arcade game, Pac-Man.

On July 3, 1999 at 4:45 P.M., taking nearly six hours to accomplish the feat — on one quarter — Billy Mitchell, 33, a Fort Lauderdale hot sauce manufacturer visiting the famous Funspot Family Fun Center in Weirs Beach, NH, scored 3,333,360 points — the maximum possible points allowed by the game. The results will go into next year’s edition of the Twin Galaxies’ Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records — which is the official record book for the world of video game and pinball playing.

Though the Funspot is a world famous vacation spot, Billy Mitchell was not there to enjoy the holiday festivities. Mitchell was there for the sole purpose of beating the Canadians to the Holy Grail of video game playing: history’s first perfect game on Pac-Man.

To get a perfect game on Pac-Man, the player has to eat every dot, every energizer, every blue man and every fruit up to and including board 256 — where the game ends with a split screen. This must be accomplished on the first man, too.

“It was unbelievable,” says Gary Vincent, Funspot Operations Manager. “Mitchell purposefully arrived on July 1st — Canada’s Day — and won the title in time for the Fourth of July. He even wore a red, white and blue, a Star Spangled Banner tie to emphasize the patriotic sentiments behind his efforts.”

Mitchell, who refused to eat until he beat the Canadians for the world record, went hungry for nearly two full days. “I had to be first,” Mitchell explains. “It’s like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. No matter how many people accomplish the feat afterwards, it will always be Armstrong who will be remembered for doing it first. And, best of all, he was an American.”

And Mitchell is first. With a camcorder supplied by Funspot bearing down over his shoulder, Mitchell’s every last move was taped for posterity — if not, at least, for irrefutable proof of the achievement. And, after the exhausting six-hour game was over, Mitchell backed away from the game in disbelief and then did the improbable: he announced his permanent retirement from playing Pac-Man. “I never have to play that darn game again,” he sighed in relief. “There’s nothing more I can accomplish.”

Billy poses with his famous foe.

“Mitchell may have just barely beat out the pack,” adds Funspot’s Gary Vincent, “because all this year players around the world have been laying siege to Pac-Man, vying to complete the first perfect game ever.”

The biggest rivalry in the quest for the first perfect game was between two Canadians and two Florida players — Billy Mitchell being one of them. On May 8, 1999, during Funspot’s First International Classic Video & Pinball Tournament, Rick Fothergill, of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, grabbed headlines with CNN, Associated Press, the Boston Phoenix, Boston Globe, and CBS Radio Network News, when he fell a mere 90 points short of a perfect game, scoring 3,333,270 points. “This is, possibly, the most difficult feat to accomplish in the world of video game playing,” explains Walter Day, chief scorekeeper at the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard — an organization based in Fairfield, Iowa that tracks high scores for the worldwide video game and pinball industries.

Mitchell agrees with Day’s assessment: “I just about fell apart at the 1.9 million point mark. And, then, it was like the end of the world as I suddenly realized that I still had 100 boards to go.”

Since the years 1980 and 1981, when Midway Games, Inc. distributed 99,000 copies of the coin-operated Pac-Man, its popularity has barely waned, remaining the most-legendary game produced during the period now being called the ‘Golden Age of Video Game Arcades', 1979-85.

“Still, in spite of its huge popularity,” marvels Day, “a perfect Pac-Man game never happened, even though millions of people were playing the game.”

To find out how rare a perfect game is, Day started a project where his staff would attend used game auctions and count the number of game plays found on the old Pac-Man machines to ascertain how many times the average Pac-Man machine had been played during its lifetime. The findings suggested that Pac-Man had been played more than 10 billion times worldwide during the last 20 years.

Mitchell's line of, now famous, hot sauce, Rickey's.

Mitchell, who also holds the world record on the classic Donkey Kong game, runs a family business manufacturing Rickey’s World Famous Sauce — a hot sauce brand distributed worldwide. He attributes his game-playing success to his friend, Chris Ayra, a Miami video game player who currently holds the world record on Ms. Pac-Man. “Chris generously shared his brilliant strategies with me, giving me all the skills I needed to beat Pac-Man.”

Mitchell plans on enjoying the Fourth of July. He will not be playing any video games.

The Funspot Family Fun Center, founded in 1952, is the world’s second-largest arcade, with 500 arcade games, miniature golf, 24 lanes of bowling and Bingo facilities. Open year-round, it is the site of the largest annual classic video game and pinball championship in the world.

Curt Vendel Donates 8 Rare Games to American Classic Arcade Museum

Sat, 22 May 1999 04:00:00 GMT

Curt Vendel of New York had a dream; to establish a permanent museum dedicated to Atari arcade games. Unfortunately, his dream was not to be and this left him with a problem - what to do with an extensive collection of rare coin-operated games gathering dust in storage. To solve the problem, Curt called Mike Stulir of Back In Time Classic Gaming. Mike connected Curt with Gary Vincent of the American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot in Weirs, NH, who gladly accepted the donation of 8 rare games to the American Classic Arcade Museum.

With the problem of where to place the games solved, Curt now faced another - how to get eight classic video games to the largest arcade in world three states away.

"No problem," said Mike, "we'll drive 'em."

With the declaration hardly off his tongue, Mike met Curt on Staten Isalnd to prepare for the big move. "I didn't really realize what I was in for," Mike recalls, "Curt had a pretty big collection."

The two hit the road. Their first stop was Curt's new pad north of NYC to drop off some games for his new home arcade, and then on to the green hills of New Hampshire and the American Classic Arcade Museum.

Curt's massive game collection being loaded on the truck.

When Curt and Mike finally arrived, Gary Vincent was anxiously awaiting them with Dave Nelson, ACAM volunteer and holder of many classic arcade game records. Gary had enlisted Dave for help with unloading the games and getting them safely into storage at ACAM.

As the task progressed, and more and more games were tucked away in the workshop, the group's excitement grew. "The shop was like a candy store and we all felt like kids!" Gary later recalled.

At last, the final game - Super Breakout - came off the truck. Among the other games donated were Super Bug, Le Mans, Tank II and Outlaw.

Gary Vincent and Dave Nelson busy unloading the truck at ACAM.

"They couldn't have gone to a better home," says Curt, "and I am very happy to know that they will be played and enjoyed by many people looking to relive old memories, and for a new generation of gamers to experience the treasures of the past and try them for the first time."

With the unloading complete, Gary and Curt take a break for a photo.