The Digital Game Museum

The date is April 14th, 2012. Screens blink neon colors in different corners of the room. Wires crisscross as they connect to game consoles that span a period of over 20 years in age. The scent of freshly bought pizza wafts gently through the air. That’s right, it’s that time again. Today is another video game competition put on by the Digital Game Museum, the second in a hopefully long line of contests. Today, the focus is a game that many have played both as children and upon reaching adulthood: Mario Kart.

This December brought us a wonderful holiday present: the donation of a Model 3 Taiko no Tatsujin arcade game plus boxes of cabinet art for different model Taiko arcade games and three boxes of 1990s gaming magazines.

We're told that in 2002, three or four of these drum arcade games were brought to the US to see if there was a market for them. Although extremely popular in Japan, Westerners didn't warm to the games, and no more were imported. The games went into private hands, and one of them ended up with Mark Laws, who generously donated it, along with the rest of his Taiko collection and years of carefully collected gaming magazines, to the Digital Game Museum.

This game is historically important because it represents the early stages of an important NAMCO franchise which has extended from the original arcade deployment to the Nintendo DS, PlayStations, Wii, and now mobile phones. The North American release for the Sony Playstation 2 was called Taiko: Drum Master. None of other releases are in English. Music tracks are drawn from J-pop, anime themes, classical excerpts, original NAMCO compositions, videogame themes, and even traditional folk songs. The gameplay is challenging, using symbols and colors to show hitting the drum in different locations and with different techniques. Mark demonstrated it to us, and it was great fun to watch and hear, but it also looked really difficult.

We're pleased to welcome guest blogger Laura C. Allen, who came to our Fall Classic Games Tournament last month.

Computer monitors flicker on the right, projecting a scene of a metallic wasteland and blood spatters. TV screens on the left display tiny men throwing bombs and running in a sort of grid. Somewhere in a corner, someone draws a bead on a digitized duck, hoping that a certain annoying dog won’t laugh at him this time. To someone unfamiliar with the scene, this can be a little overwhelming. But for a gamer who grew up on these games, it’s like taking a step back in time. Suddenly we’re ten years old again, turning on the console for the first time and seeing the logo flash. Somehow, we’d forgotten how good this could feel.

With the coming of our more modern games like Call of Duty or Skyrim, these games can seem like they’re not worth much anymore. But they’re worth more than anyone imagines. Well, almost anyone. The Digital Game Museum saw the worth in these classic games and decided the best way to appreciate them was not just to show off the package art and do write ups about them. Instead, they held their first Classic Gaming Competition in the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, California. Three events were held: Super Smash Brothers, Bomberman, and Duke Nukem 3D. The cost to enter? A mere five dollars. All to a worthy cause, and for a chance to play games long forgotten but well loved. I can bet that a lot of these gamers have been waiting for this sort of thing to happen for a long time, even if they didn't know it.

The Fall Classic Games Tournament is coming to the Hacker Dojo on November 19th from 3-10pm.
Food, fun, prizes, a secret tournament(?), plus a special exhibit from us made especially for this event.

Head over to the registration site and sign up for free!