Gearbox Software has a hell of a collection in the offices

Well I guess I'm working for the wrong company! :p EDOT to boot, bah they're just showing off. I dig the Roger Dean fanart too. :D
 
One of our group members was working on many of those games getting them going again. I can't recall if I'm allowed to say or not but he told me about them. Quite a collection indeed. Place is locked down like a fortress. I'll see if he wants to add anything to this thread.
 
When "a certain space-faring computer game designer" was still working for "a local gaming company", he had his personal arcade collection scattered through the hallways. He had over 40 individual classic arcades in there, and we still had about 12 that were severely broken that we worked on but that he "wasn't in a hurry" to get fixed at the time.

After he left the company, I got to haul them all out and take them to a building on his property. We still have some in the shop in a corner for whenever he decides he wants to get them finished.

Here's what's broken and in the shop right now:

Battlezone
Lunar Lander (two)
Space Panic
Defender
Space Duel
Tempest
Star Wars cockpit
Space War (Vectorbeam)
Space Wars (Cinematronics) (two)
Missile Command cocktail
Computer Space (green 2P)
Haunted House pinball
Strikes N Spares pinball

When our company first got the call, he had about 40 in storage and not working, and 10 in the company with various problems but mostly working. I fixed the 10, then 30 more before we stopped actively finishing them out...
 
It is not that unusual for game companies to have games just "laying" around. We had 20 or 30 in the software building at Williams. A lot were Williams classics, some were competitors machines for "research" purposes only (none of them were any fun to play anyway :D). And of course some pins just because everybody loves pins...

ken
 
Blue Shift inc

I once worked a short stint at Blue Shift when most of the original team was still there.
Basically they were an old Atari team that left together and stayed for a couple of decades making games together.

Rampart
Paperboy
720
Cyberball
Stunrunner

Of course they had just the Cyberball in the office where everyone played it all the time.

Hi Rick!!! It's me John Tam... way back from Activision days....

When I worked at Capcom they had about 8-10 machines usually working well in the lunch room. The problem was that when they closed the arcade, they sent much of the main equipment back to japan and disposed (sheds tear) the rest. (long sad story)

After they closed the arcade division, no one had parts to maintain even the ones in the lunch room. Hugo the arcade technician ended up moving to shipping and general operations tasks... sad sad sad...
 
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We used to have a few machines at Valve (Joust, Centipede, Pac-Man I think) back in '99-ish, but no one was in to taking care of them (or just too damn busy), so they all went away.

Now that Rick is here, we need to revisit that decision. :) Plus there are a few of us that geek out a bit now on keeping them going, etc. (some better than others, ie. I suck at working on them and need all the help I can get.)

I LOVED Stunrunner when I first played it in college. I had just started doing 3D graphics programming at home (instead of going to class!) for fun, and I was completely floored when I played that game the first time. I still love playing it, and have been tempted to do a remake of sorts of it, but I always have more things that I want to do than I can actually get done. :)
 
When "a certain space-faring computer game designer" was still working for "a local gaming company", he had his personal arcade collection scattered through the hallways. He had over 40 individual classic arcades in there, and we still had about 12 that were severely broken that we worked on but that he "wasn't in a hurry" to get fixed at the time.

The coolest thing about that whole venture for me was finding out he's still an active ham radio operator, though unfortunately I didn't have the gear to work ARISS when he was up there. That would have been a hell of a QSL card. Got a lot of exposure for amateur service in the process, which is never a bad thing. :)

And Rick, if you can't find space for all of those at Valve, just forward them to Virginia, I'm sure I could find room for overflow in my apartment by throwing some unimportant stuff into storage...like the bed...and the couch. :) Got a bit of unused space at the office, too, haven't had a machine in the office since we moved to main campus, there was a Gauntlet Dark Legends that I'm guessing was Peter Hirschberg's, I think he was in that office at that time.

Should have figured we'd have a few game devs here, nice to see what seems to be a bit of a reunion going on too. :)
 
Gary I just realized who you are... we've never crossed paths but I was the AP on SiN before you went to Ritual. I also hung out with BHook when I was visiting iD on Quake 2.

When I was at RedOctane I brought in my JAMMA japanese cab for SSF2Turbo action and all of the QA guys wrecked my machine. I recently went through and matched/replaced every screw in the darn thing. Those candy cabs fall apart pretty easy from the vibration and need to constantly tightened down.

Servicing Arcade machines does take a bunch of time. I feel sorry for operators.
 
When I worked at Capcom they had about 8-10 machines usually working well in the lunch room. The problem was that when they closed the arcade, they sent much of the main equipment back to japan and disposed (sheds tear) the rest. (long sad story)

After they closed the arcade division, no one had parts to maintain even the ones in the lunch room. Hugo the arcade technician ended up moving to shipping and general operations tasks... sad sad sad...

I worked for an operator in Santa Clara that used to get a bunch of stuff from Capcom. He and I showed up one day to see the warehouse guys reaching into the backs of BRAND NEW GAMES with a hammer busting the necks off of tubes before the game was shoved into a dumpster. Jim and I stopped them and ended up taking all of the games back to his shop. FWIW, the game wasnt anything spectacular but they had new 19" monitors, 3" trackballs and new Happ coin doors that we pulled from the games.

Sad indeed...

Matt
 
There were a handful of cabinets at Petroglyph (Pengo, Gauntlet II, etc), but they pretty much just sat off in a corner out of sight, in need of repair and collecting dust.

I have my Divers Dreamcast and a Tomy TRON here at Jet Set, does that count? :]

Once we move into more permanent digs, I'm sure we'll end up with some cabs. One of the founders has a Mappy (sitting in my garage) and Popeye, and I've got my games... decent amount of retro fans here at the office.

(by the way, nice to see more industry folks here on klov)
 
Nice collection! From the picture out the window it really looks like that is from within the Bank of America building at 75 and Park. I tried to get management to put some games in here since we have a bunch of embedded developers on staff, but they only put in ping-pong, pool, darts, foosball, etc. They don't mind me having a machine or two in my office, but they won't clear anything more than that. :(
 
We used to have a few machines at Valve (Joust, Centipede, Pac-Man I think) back in '99-ish, but no one was in to taking care of them (or just too damn busy), so they all went away.

QUOTE]


We (avidgeek and I, Blast From the Past Amusements) sold 4 games to Vavle back in 98 or 99.
I know three of them- Marbel Madness, Joust and Centipede.
I can't remember the fourth. I personally bought the games back
from Valve for my collection.
I still have the MM/System 1 cabinet.
 
We used to have a few machines at Valve (Joust, Centipede, Pac-Man I think) back in '99-ish, but no one was in to taking care of them (or just too damn busy), so they all went away.


We (avidgeek and I, Blast From the Past Amusements) sold 4 games to Vavle back in 98 or 99.
I know three of them- Marbel Madness, Joust and Centipede.
I can't remember the fourth. I personally bought the games back
from Valve for my collection.
I still have the MM/System 1 cabinet.

It was '99. I remember them showing up and I didn't start working at Valve until March of '99.

I was SOOOO excited to have a Joust and Centipede there, but we didn't manage to keep them maintained. Now that there are a few of us that are into working on machines, I don't think it would a problem now. We all have them at home now though. :)

Someone has a Mame machine at the office now, but. . bleh. Too much latency and the video looks terrible.

My wife won't let me get anymore for home, so I may have to start getting some for the office again. :)
 
I remember seeing those games in the basement of the Valve Kirkland offices when I interviewed there in 2001!
 
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