newsheriffintown
Well-known member
Game Haul: 2016 Emerald Coast Con

Not a new game pickup, just hauling some of my machines about 400 miles round trip to be enjoyed by others this past weekend. My wife, daughter, and 14 of our games traveled to Fort Walton Beach, Florida to participate in the 2016 Emerald Coast Con, which is an "all gen" gaming convention. All of the proceeds support a 501(c)(3) organization (ARC of Emerald Coast) which provides services for those with disabilities. While the focus was not "arcade games" the "retro arcade" section was definitely a hit. The convention did truly focus on all generations of gaming, from duck hunt to present. They had a room dedicated to all of the retro consoles and I had the opportunity (for the first time) to spend some time with one of the home neo geo home consoles (very cool), and a separate tournament room with no telling how many modern consoles all networked together. The main tournaments were on the stage with live commentary. Since the arcade games were on the walls around the stage, as I kept an eye on the machines I got to watch some of the tournaments. The newer games in the tournament looked awesome (I quit buying consoles at Playstation 2 / Wii) and I really enjoyed watching them going at it. Don't know the names of all of the tournament games but one was old school characters in a fighting game (donkey Kong, mario, sonic, etc.) and another was a pokemon fighting game. I will tell you, the players were serious as hell about it....
I wish I took more pictures:




The folks running the convention were great and it was very obvious that they were excited for us to be there. Truly made us feel like a VIP. They had event t-shirts, posters, snacks, drinks, and other fun freebies waiting for us at the hotel they provided, right on the beach:



Not a new game pickup, just hauling some of my machines about 400 miles round trip to be enjoyed by others this past weekend. My wife, daughter, and 14 of our games traveled to Fort Walton Beach, Florida to participate in the 2016 Emerald Coast Con, which is an "all gen" gaming convention. All of the proceeds support a 501(c)(3) organization (ARC of Emerald Coast) which provides services for those with disabilities. While the focus was not "arcade games" the "retro arcade" section was definitely a hit. The convention did truly focus on all generations of gaming, from duck hunt to present. They had a room dedicated to all of the retro consoles and I had the opportunity (for the first time) to spend some time with one of the home neo geo home consoles (very cool), and a separate tournament room with no telling how many modern consoles all networked together. The main tournaments were on the stage with live commentary. Since the arcade games were on the walls around the stage, as I kept an eye on the machines I got to watch some of the tournaments. The newer games in the tournament looked awesome (I quit buying consoles at Playstation 2 / Wii) and I really enjoyed watching them going at it. Don't know the names of all of the tournament games but one was old school characters in a fighting game (donkey Kong, mario, sonic, etc.) and another was a pokemon fighting game. I will tell you, the players were serious as hell about it....
I wish I took more pictures:




The folks running the convention were great and it was very obvious that they were excited for us to be there. Truly made us feel like a VIP. They had event t-shirts, posters, snacks, drinks, and other fun freebies waiting for us at the hotel they provided, right on the beach:






