Jojo With Tha Fl
Member
I was a little bummed to see BoP and Jackbot there, but NO PINBOT!!
Midwest Gaming Classic 2011, who's going?
- Thread starter Angry_Radish
- Start date
I was a little bummed to see BoP and Jackbot there, but NO PINBOT!!
Pinbot was there... It's new pseudo name is Jackbot.
Im actually surprised that your defender did not sell, i thought that you wre reasonable on the price. I was actually surprised that there were not that many games for sale. I was in a buying mood and was looking for machines to take home. I bought the Creature from the black lagoon and i also bought the No Fear that was next to it, One for my collection, CFTBL and the no fear will be gone through and flipped. If i had wanted a williams cocktail, i would have been happy with both the defender and the bubbles.
troy
troy
jeffhlewis
New member
Oh and dethfactor...You're a dick!
Here I was thinking "ouch I just called some guys wife a tranny, I feel like shit".
I was walking out of the console area and saw that girl in that getup yesterday - I did a double take and could not believe what i was seeing. words don't do it justice...I mean like I'm surprised they let her in with what she was wearing.
I think she was there with her father (?) which made it even more awkward. I tend to find cosplay kind of creepy and this definitely was not the right venue for it.
Les Manley
Well-known member
That BOP is long gone now. It played like a beauty though. I was there both days, but only walked around quickly downstairs. Vast majority of the time was spent playing pins upstairs. Bought a couple of things in the main vendor room and had a great time. This was my second year going and I will go back next year.
The Jack-Bot that was there was bought by Brian Millard, so it will be at the MN State Fair Pinball On A Stick this year, for all the locals who are hitting up the fair.
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Oh and dethfactor...You're a dick!
Here I was thinking "ouch I just called some guys wife a tranny, I feel like shit".
Sorry I just had to do it. I was there on saturday with my wife and I probably would have taken a pick of it myself had I seen it. I did see the mario dude and a few other cosplayers. Still didn't really seem like an event for cosplaying.
martyg
New member
Hello everyone, first I want to say thanks to everyone that attended and helped make this one of our best years ever. I just wanted to take a moment to address some of the concerns I saw voiced in the thread:
1) Regarding the few people who mentioned a supposed lack in the number of arcade games, you must be mistaken or missed some of our areas. We had over 200 arcade games this year in both the video and pinball platforms (about 40 or so in video, and the rest pinball) in the coin hall, competition area, VGEVO room, Mario Party rooms and vending hall. These machines are brought on a volunteer basis, they are not the show's. That means every single machine there is brought by collectors such as yourselves and vendors. If there's more pins than video, then that's because the pinball community has been much more welcoming to participation over the last 10 years of the show than video has. And that's certainly not meant to take away from the greatly appreciated (and counted on) annual participation by Arcade Adventures (chips4sle), Star Worlds Arcade, Galloping Ghost arcade and the few people in this thread that also mentioned that they brought games (hisnice, etc.). Unfortunately, it's just been the cold hard fact of the support we have from the pinball community vs. video.
We don't make money off of coin-op sales, and in fact we go out of our way to make it worth while for vendors and collectors to bring them. So if you want to see more video or other coins at the show, then tell the vendors and collectors that are there what you'd like to see more of. And also ask the other collectors and vendors on this and other boards why they're not there then, because we're more than happy to support them being there. If you're reading this thread and are a collector interested in bringing your games for people to enjoy at the show, please contact us - we'd love to have you there. As hisnice mentioned, it's all community supported. In fact about every aspect of our show is community supported.
2) Rrcade, there is nobody "robbing" anyone at the door, and there is far more than a few "musty old carts" at the show. $20 is more than fair for 10 hours worth of free play on over 200 coins, 300 consoles/computers, etc., a plethora of events, gatherings, competitions, speakers and panels, etc. crammed in to a 35,000 sq. ft. show. And that's just day 1. Our fully searchable online event guide is still up here:
http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/event-guide/
3) Zookeeper, Rrcade et al. - While we're not stroller friendly, we are certainly kid friendly. In fact Sunday is specifically geared towards kids and families (hence it's title of Family day and lower admission cost). Likewise, kids 12 and under are always free. Also, every single coin-op game is set on free credit. If a machine was out of credits, you simply had to ask the machine's owners (who were all near by) to give more. The machines and their operation, explanation, etc. are their responsibility, as they should be. While I understand your request for someone to be around to help explain the games to kids, our already very large staff of volunteers are needed to help run the main aspects of the show, both leading up to and during the show, behind the scenes and on the show floors. It is because of them we've been able to maintain the constant successful growth of the show, where 95% of the thousands of people that attend every year are local attendance. The local attendance that, as you mention, is (and always has been) crucial towards our growth.
4) I apologize to whoever that was that had to pay to get in to pick up a coin game they purchased the day before. That is certainly not normal operation, and it's the first I've heard of this happening in the years that we've had coin vendors. As we have security at every door in the facility to check for wrist bands, normally the vendors simply come and walk people back to the coin hall to pick up their merchandise. I'll make sure Dan knows about it, and we'll come up with something to make sure it doesn't happen again - as it's simply not the norm or something we want repeating.
5) Swagger just wasn't something that was worthwhile to pursue any more. It simply cost more in money and time for us to support it than what we got out of it for a sponsorship. (Any idea how long it takes and how many volunteers to stuff a couple thousand bags?) While we certainly welcome corporate sponsorship and appreciate our regular sponsors, we're not interested in going out of our way to make it a corporate show like some of the other shows have. We are a show by gamers and for gamers, and will always strive to maintain that ideal no matter how large we get.
This was our 10th anniversary show, which certainly shows we've been doing something right. But we're always looking to improve it as well as address people's concerns, so if there's any further questions or suggestions, please don't hesitate to let us know.
For those not familiar with me, I'm a co-founder and co-organizer of the show, and during the show itself I'm busy with my museum room (E2M vintage computers and consoles from '72-'85) and making sure the museum wing runs smoothly along with JD (DHG Hunter). I also ran the talks with Ralph Baer, Ted Dabney and Michael Katz. You'll also see me running through every so often with my camera taking pictures of everything for the show archive I've been maintaining since the show first started back in 2001. In fact, Angry Radish caught a picture of me here (the blurry guy to the right with the blue pac-man shirt and camera in his hand):
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=66162&stc=1&d=1301230280
Marty "Retro Rogue" Goldberg
1) Regarding the few people who mentioned a supposed lack in the number of arcade games, you must be mistaken or missed some of our areas. We had over 200 arcade games this year in both the video and pinball platforms (about 40 or so in video, and the rest pinball) in the coin hall, competition area, VGEVO room, Mario Party rooms and vending hall. These machines are brought on a volunteer basis, they are not the show's. That means every single machine there is brought by collectors such as yourselves and vendors. If there's more pins than video, then that's because the pinball community has been much more welcoming to participation over the last 10 years of the show than video has. And that's certainly not meant to take away from the greatly appreciated (and counted on) annual participation by Arcade Adventures (chips4sle), Star Worlds Arcade, Galloping Ghost arcade and the few people in this thread that also mentioned that they brought games (hisnice, etc.). Unfortunately, it's just been the cold hard fact of the support we have from the pinball community vs. video.
We don't make money off of coin-op sales, and in fact we go out of our way to make it worth while for vendors and collectors to bring them. So if you want to see more video or other coins at the show, then tell the vendors and collectors that are there what you'd like to see more of. And also ask the other collectors and vendors on this and other boards why they're not there then, because we're more than happy to support them being there. If you're reading this thread and are a collector interested in bringing your games for people to enjoy at the show, please contact us - we'd love to have you there. As hisnice mentioned, it's all community supported. In fact about every aspect of our show is community supported.
2) Rrcade, there is nobody "robbing" anyone at the door, and there is far more than a few "musty old carts" at the show. $20 is more than fair for 10 hours worth of free play on over 200 coins, 300 consoles/computers, etc., a plethora of events, gatherings, competitions, speakers and panels, etc. crammed in to a 35,000 sq. ft. show. And that's just day 1. Our fully searchable online event guide is still up here:
http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/event-guide/
3) Zookeeper, Rrcade et al. - While we're not stroller friendly, we are certainly kid friendly. In fact Sunday is specifically geared towards kids and families (hence it's title of Family day and lower admission cost). Likewise, kids 12 and under are always free. Also, every single coin-op game is set on free credit. If a machine was out of credits, you simply had to ask the machine's owners (who were all near by) to give more. The machines and their operation, explanation, etc. are their responsibility, as they should be. While I understand your request for someone to be around to help explain the games to kids, our already very large staff of volunteers are needed to help run the main aspects of the show, both leading up to and during the show, behind the scenes and on the show floors. It is because of them we've been able to maintain the constant successful growth of the show, where 95% of the thousands of people that attend every year are local attendance. The local attendance that, as you mention, is (and always has been) crucial towards our growth.
4) I apologize to whoever that was that had to pay to get in to pick up a coin game they purchased the day before. That is certainly not normal operation, and it's the first I've heard of this happening in the years that we've had coin vendors. As we have security at every door in the facility to check for wrist bands, normally the vendors simply come and walk people back to the coin hall to pick up their merchandise. I'll make sure Dan knows about it, and we'll come up with something to make sure it doesn't happen again - as it's simply not the norm or something we want repeating.
5) Swagger just wasn't something that was worthwhile to pursue any more. It simply cost more in money and time for us to support it than what we got out of it for a sponsorship. (Any idea how long it takes and how many volunteers to stuff a couple thousand bags?) While we certainly welcome corporate sponsorship and appreciate our regular sponsors, we're not interested in going out of our way to make it a corporate show like some of the other shows have. We are a show by gamers and for gamers, and will always strive to maintain that ideal no matter how large we get.
This was our 10th anniversary show, which certainly shows we've been doing something right. But we're always looking to improve it as well as address people's concerns, so if there's any further questions or suggestions, please don't hesitate to let us know.
For those not familiar with me, I'm a co-founder and co-organizer of the show, and during the show itself I'm busy with my museum room (E2M vintage computers and consoles from '72-'85) and making sure the museum wing runs smoothly along with JD (DHG Hunter). I also ran the talks with Ralph Baer, Ted Dabney and Michael Katz. You'll also see me running through every so often with my camera taking pictures of everything for the show archive I've been maintaining since the show first started back in 2001. In fact, Angry Radish caught a picture of me here (the blurry guy to the right with the blue pac-man shirt and camera in his hand):
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=66162&stc=1&d=1301230280
Marty "Retro Rogue" Goldberg
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mickster0150
Active member
To all that were dissappointed on rapid fire and marble madness not working at the show can point the finger at me. I brought marble madness for a couple of reasons, it isn't really known for breaking down and its a duel trackball game which isn't just your normal dual joystick affair. Marble madness broke down friday night after being on a couple of hours. I checked the power supply (good +5 volts with no ac ripple) and was able to deduce that it was a problem with the main pcb. Troy Smith volunteered to bring a main pcb from his indiana jones for me to swap it. I installed the pcb and the game came right up, problem is the trackballs acted a little goofy (but it was still somewhat playable). Most likely the leta chip was bad (it is unused in indy). I noticed later saturday that it had become unplayable, but I just left it on the rest of the day. Sorry on this one, I tried!
Rapid Fire - Basically it had 2-3 bad connections on the Sol/driver pcb. It originally wasn't even going in the show, but at the last minute I brought it in. While it was down almost the entire time for the public, it was up and working for the saturday night party.
Just trying to keep these two games going kept me running around with my soldering iron and toolbox. It was very frustrating to drive a truck all the way to the show, unload both games and two wheel them in, just to have them quit working.
Rest of the show was great, I have gone for about the last 5 years and have fun every time.
I liked the mario birthday party room. Very cool theme. Nice to see a room setup for families and kids. Also the pokemon room was nice also. Saw a kid around 8-10 years old coordinating a multiplayer match with a bunch of other kids for pokemon battles, all with very good attitude and fun.
Rapid Fire - Basically it had 2-3 bad connections on the Sol/driver pcb. It originally wasn't even going in the show, but at the last minute I brought it in. While it was down almost the entire time for the public, it was up and working for the saturday night party.
Just trying to keep these two games going kept me running around with my soldering iron and toolbox. It was very frustrating to drive a truck all the way to the show, unload both games and two wheel them in, just to have them quit working.
Rest of the show was great, I have gone for about the last 5 years and have fun every time.
I liked the mario birthday party room. Very cool theme. Nice to see a room setup for families and kids. Also the pokemon room was nice also. Saw a kid around 8-10 years old coordinating a multiplayer match with a bunch of other kids for pokemon battles, all with very good attitude and fun.
jeffhlewis
New member
First off thank you for providing this great event - I originally expected to just go Saturday but found myself driving back on Sunday also because there was so much to see and the vendor floor was great for console stuff.
Second - I'm very interested in bringing hardware and games for the museum setup. Do you guys take volunteers for this? how is it organized?
I'd also love to bring some upright arcade machines from my collection, the only issue being the transport. I've got a truck but I would need a UHaul or trailer to comfortably and safely get them there. Would be awesome if someone volunteered and coordinated pickups to bring machines to the event. Not sure if that would be possible in the future.
looking forward to the next one.
OP
OP
Angry_Radish
Well-known member
For the local folks with no transport, I can help next year. just get it out of your basement and we can load it and transport
trickman
Well-known member
I was busy tending to my area (Retroids/VGEvo Events Area) downstairs in Moorland 1-3 rooms most of the time (we relaunched as retroids.com), so I didn't get to walk around a lot. But CrazyKongFan came by a few times, asking if I had seen any other KLOV members. Ghostlord was in the room with us, touting Galloping Ghost, I saw martyg briefly, and mrsodapop was upstairs...selling pop! Later, CrazyKongFan walked in with Schusler and we were able to snag this KLOV members pic:
Left to Right: Trickman, Schusler, CrazyKongFan
And for those of you that were looking for more arcade games, you should've looked downstairs. StarWorlds arcade brought in all kinds of DK and Mario-themed arcade games--including red tents, and Ghostlord (aka Doc) of Galloping Ghost arcade brought in 12 games for the room (Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat II, 1943, Super Puzzle Fighter, Joust, Burgertime, Galaga, Police Trainer, Street Fighter, Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Silent Scope, The Simpsons), and their prototype Dark Presence game:
Left to Right: Trickman, Schusler, CrazyKongFan
And for those of you that were looking for more arcade games, you should've looked downstairs. StarWorlds arcade brought in all kinds of DK and Mario-themed arcade games--including red tents, and Ghostlord (aka Doc) of Galloping Ghost arcade brought in 12 games for the room (Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat II, 1943, Super Puzzle Fighter, Joust, Burgertime, Galaga, Police Trainer, Street Fighter, Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Silent Scope, The Simpsons), and their prototype Dark Presence game:
martyg
New member
There's no pic showing up.
trickman
Well-known member
There's no pic showing up.
Posted three pics. Are you sure? Anyone else not see them?
martyg:
The show is always great, however kind of a maze to find stuff and not miss anything but nothing can be done about that, I suppose it's a little fun searching for areas rather than in one huge room. As far as the "musty old cartridge games", I was just venting, but you have to admit there were a LOT of them. I was just pissed because it cost me $60.00, yes Sixty Dollars to attend with my son and wife who could really care less about the stuff. What was the reason for doubling the admission price? It was 10.00 in 2006/2007 correct?
I agree with hisniceart of our role in keeping this community alive is to keep paying the $10 to walk in (and keep events alive), by buying things to keep companies in business, and part is by sharing a game of yours every so often.
The show is great, especially because there is Nothing like it. But if a family of four has to spend 100.00 to get in that's unfortunate.
My only bitch is the admission, everything else is Excellent.
The show is always great, however kind of a maze to find stuff and not miss anything but nothing can be done about that, I suppose it's a little fun searching for areas rather than in one huge room. As far as the "musty old cartridge games", I was just venting, but you have to admit there were a LOT of them. I was just pissed because it cost me $60.00, yes Sixty Dollars to attend with my son and wife who could really care less about the stuff. What was the reason for doubling the admission price? It was 10.00 in 2006/2007 correct?
I agree with hisnice
art of our role in keeping this community alive is to keep paying the $10 to walk in (and keep events alive), by buying things to keep companies in business, and part is by sharing a game of yours every so often.The show is great, especially because there is Nothing like it. But if a family of four has to spend 100.00 to get in that's unfortunate.
My only bitch is the admission, everything else is Excellent.
martyg
New member
Dan is the perfect person to answer specifics on pricing and cost since he and Gary handle all the finances and logistics. He's coming here to respond and explain why, but he's just waiting for his KLOV account to be verified.
I will say this off the bat - in 2006/2007 we were a 15,000 sq. ft. show with far less tables (108), space, attendance, etc. and a different location. This year we were close to 40,000 sq ft. with about 400 tables, our own power grid (that we built and paid for - what do you think safely distributes power to all those coins?), security we pay for, advertising we pay for, and much much more. Last year we made a "profit" of $198 at these admission prices (which is a difference of 10 people in attendance that would have put us in a loss again if they had not attended), which went right back towards the show. And in previous years the show has consistently operated at a loss (some years very large). I'm curious just how much you think the show actually costs to run at this level?
As stated previously, this show is by gamers for gamers. We do this because we love gaming and all aspects of it, not because we're looking to make a living from this. Otherwise we would have packed it in a while ago, because it's in no way providing any sort of income for any of us. We're also not interested in going the corporate expo route some other shows have gone to bring in corporate sponsorships and participation, as being an E3 type show for the public just isn't our vibe. If coprorations want to come to us, great. If not, it doesn't matter. The "by gamers for gamers" feeling is important to us to maintain no matter how large we get. I.E. the place you come to hang out with friends and family, to meet and make new friends, all while you enjoy everything that is electronic gaming for the weekend.
We understand it can be cost prohibitive for some families, which is why we always have had kids 12 and under completely free. Likewise we created the family day on Sunday, where the ticket price is $10. Honestly, feel free to compare it to other large gaming shows:
MGC: $25 for the weekend. $20 Sat, $10 Sun.
Classic Gaming Expo: $35 for the weekend.
California Extreme: $60 for the weekend, $40 Sat, $30 Sun.
Penny Expo: $55 for the weekend, $35 for one day.
Marty
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MXV
Active member
I will say this. I found the MGC this year to be a lot better value with more to play and more to do than the last pinball expo which was absolutely not worth the new, higher price.
OP
OP
Angry_Radish
Well-known member
OP
OP
Angry_Radish
Well-known member
Oh, and what happened to Cointaker?
I wanted badly to buy some LED's but Terry only brought his no-ghost ones thinking Cointaker would be there with his inventory...
I wanted badly to buy some LED's but Terry only brought his no-ghost ones thinking Cointaker would be there with his inventory...
martyg
New member
Awesome room BTW
I don't remember seeing a Commodore CDTV there, did I miss it?
Nope, no CDTV this year. The Commodore area in my room was run by the ECCC guys and had a Pet, Vic20, C64, SX64, and CD32. Maybe I'll pick up a CDTV for next year, always looking to fill in with more obscure consoles. One of the things we pride ourselves with in the two rooms that make up the entire museum, is that most everything is actually playable, rather than something to be stared at.
Marty
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