DFW now a hotbed for video game culture
From consoles to computers, apps to arcade cabinets, Mario to Minecraft, most everyone plays video games.
Regardless of where you are on the gaming spectrum, consider yourself fortunate to live in Dallas-Fort Worth. It has become gaming central, a place where titles are developed and marketed. It also has become the focus of an increasing number of events where gamers can interact in person.
“I think North Texas has become the mecca of gaming,” says Trey Fondren, owner of FX Game Exchange in Plano. Fondren is also a co-organizer of the Let’s Play Gaming Expo, coming to the Plano Centre, Aug. 1-2.
“It’s gotten that way for a number of reasons,” Fondren continues. “Great developers like id Software and Gearbox are based here, as are local YouTube personalities like The Game Chasers. GameStop is headquartered in Grapevine. There are many fantastic retro-video-game stores here as well, such as Console Game Exchange, Game Over Videogames, Movie Trading Company and even Half-Price Books to some extent.”
Never one to miss out on a hot trend, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has also gotten involved in the industry, investing in a new company called Unikrn (pronounced “unicorn”), which offers wagering on competitive tournaments for such games as League of Legends, DOTA 2 and Counter Strike: Global Offensive.
“The rapid growth of eSports has created an entire new category of competition,” Cuban said in a statement. “I’m excited to be involved with a new sport just as it’s poised for huge growth.”
Indeed, DFW is bustling with gaming goodness, as evidenced by numerous events in the area, such as last month’s Video Games Live performance as part of the Concerts in the Garden series at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, not a place where gamers would be expected to hang out.
But they turned out for this.
In fact, the touring Video Games Live has become a global phenomenon, led by veteran video-game composer Tommy Tallarico. As the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra played music from some of the most popular video games of the past 30 years, matching gameplay footage was shown on three screens behind the musicians.
When Tallarico would announce an especially well-loved title, such as Halo or Sonic the Hedgehog, many in the crowd would scream the name of the game with delight, as though cheering for their favorite rock band.
When a Watauga man, who had won a Guitar Hero competition earlier in the evening got onstage to play the game in Expert mode on the big screens, people cheered loudly when he broke the event’s all-time Guitar Hero record.
If you missed out on Video Games Live, don’t worry, there are plenty of gaming events headed our way in the next few months, including the ScrewAttack Gaming Convention in Frisco next weekend; a gaming-themed feature movie, Pixels, opening this month; and a museum devoted to gaming debuting in September.
Whether you like Pac-Man or Pong, Gears of War or World of Warcraft, here’s where you need to be:
ScrewAttack Gaming Convention
July 17-19
Named after a battle maneuver in the popular NES game Metroid, ScrewAttack (www.screwattack.com) is a popular website based out of Lewisville. It was founded by Craig Skistimas in 2006 after he graduated from the University of North Texas.
“I knew I didn’t want to work a standard 9-to-5 job, and I had two passions: sports and video games,” Skistimas says. “I thought about trying to go the sports route, but getting anywhere in sports broadcasting is all about chance and luck, so I figured I’d try this crazy Internet thing and make a podcast about video games with a buddy of mine. After launch, we quickly turned to making videos about video games long before doing so was so easy and readily available. Our videos connected with viewers and allowed us to grow and become trendsetters in online video.”
Skistimas got the idea for ScrewAttack Gaming Convention (SGC for short) after attending Seattle’s Penny Arcade Expo in 2008.
“I wanted to have an annual event built in the Dallas/Fort Worth area around the amazing video-game community coupled with the craziness of the ScrewAttack website,” he says.
According to Skistimas, whose job is to “organize all programming and make sure that anything that’s happening is infinitely awesome,” SGC is a “giant party where you and 5,000 of your closest friends get together and play games, hang out and meet some of the most popular gaming personalities on the Internet. SGC is everything that is right about video games.”
Skistimas believes that games are best when they’re played with friends in a close-knit environment like a game room or arcade. As such, SGC will offer a full arcade featuring such classics as Tron, Ms. Pac-Man and Street Fighter II set on free play. In addition, there will be a console area where gamers can compete in a variety of tournaments, including Killer Instinct (Xbox One), Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo 64) and Super Smash Bros. (Wii U).
Each year, Skistimas challenges himself and his crew to make SGC different and exciting, while at the same time keeping the same party vibe and atmosphere.
“We have quite a few really cool panels lined up for this show, including a reunion of the American voice acting cast of Dragon Ball Z and a roast of Jon St. John, the voice actor of Duke Nukem,” he says. “We also have our huge cosplay contest and of course incredible programming that includes the immensely popular Rooster Teeth, DidYouKnowGaming and ScrewAttack’s own Death Battle!,” which is a video series pitting pop culture’s deadliest characters against one another in a fight to the finish.
“Of course we have some surprises in store as well,” Skistimas says. “It’s going to be an amazing weekend.”
Embassy Suites Dallas-Frisco, 7600 John Q Hammons Dr., Frisco. One-day ticket $27.76; early weekend pass $55.51. www.sgconvention.com
QuakeCon
July 23-26
Each year, thousands of computer gamers from around the world come to Dallas to experience QuakeCon, which is often described as the “world’s largest BYOC (bring your own computer) LAN party” or the “Woodstock of gaming: 4 Days of Peace, Love, and Rockets.”
People flock to QuakeCon to play against their friends on a giant gaming network, compete in tournaments and see the latest offerings from such companies as id Software (founded in Mesquite, headquartered in Richardson), maker of such popular games as Doom, Wolfenstein and, of course, Quake.
The first QuakeCon was held in August of 1996 at the Best Western hotel in Garland, where a few die-hard id Software fans wired their computers together between rooms and hallways. By the end of the weekend, as news of the gathering spread via Internet chat networks, more than 100 people had shown up, including id Software founder John Carmack, who regaled attendees with behind-the-scenes information on the company’s games.
In the ensuing years, QuakeCon has grown into a global phenomenon.
According to Griffin McElroy of www.polygon.com, it is a convention like no other.
“It’s part slumber party, part celebration of local gaming at a scale that is nearly unreproducible,” he says. “For most of the attendees, this once-a-year event is the only way they can play LAN games at this level. For a lot of the games, which have seen their online servers deactivated years ago, this is the only way to play multiplayer, full-stop.”
Hilton Anatole, 2201 N. Stemmons Freeway, Dallas. Free. www.quakecon.org
‘Pixels’
Opens July 24
In the film Pixels, NASA, hoping to establish peaceful relations with extraterrestrial life, has launched a time capsule into outer space containing images of Earth culture, including classic arcade games. Unfortunately, aliens misinterpret the video feeds of the games as a declaration of war. To attack Earth, they use weapons based on these video games, including Centipede, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Pac-Man and Space Invaders.
Enter Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler), Will Cooper (Kevin James), Ludlow Lamonsoff (Josh Gad) and Eddie “The Fire Blaster” Plant (Peter Dinklage), who spent their money and their leisure time during the early 1980s in the arcades, battling aliens and saving the world.
Now, aided by weapons supplier Lt. Col. Violet Van Patten (Michelle Monaghan), they must fend off an alien invasion in real life.
If you watched the NBA Finals, you probably saw commercials for Pixels, which looks like goofy good fun.
Dallas Gaming Expo
July 24-26
Hosted by Kevin Dunlap, owner of The Rail Club music venue in Fort Worth, the Dallas Gaming Expo will cater to gamers of all types. In addition to classic and modern consoles and coin-op games set on free play (including tournaments with cash prizes), the con will have a game room where attendees can indulge their inner (and outer) nerd in a little tabletop gaming.
“We’ll have lots of room in our table game room for whatever you like,” says Ronnie Killingsworth, owner of Collected: Your Pop Culture Headquarters, a retail chain sponsoring the convention’s board and card game tournaments. “Whether it’s starting a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, challenging your friends in Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, playing a board game or bustin’ out your Magic the Gathering deck, you’ll find plenty of others ready to play.”
If you aren’t a gamer but are into other aspects of geek culture, the Dallas Gaming Expo will offer some entertaining things as well.
The convention has “lots to offer non-gamers,” Killingsworth says, including “dance parties, vendors, trivia contests, live music from such acts as Psychostick and Super Guitar Bros. and special guests like Peter Mayhew [Chewbacca] and Verne Troyer [Mini-Me]. There are also celebrity cosplayers, including Raychul Moore, who will be hosting a cosplay contest with a $1,000 first prize.”
Crowne Plaza hotel, 14315 Midway Road, Addison. One-day ticket $40; $15 for children age 12 and younger; weekend pass $60. dallasgamingexpo.com
Let’s Play Gaming Expo
Aug. 1-2
Inspired by the “Let’s Play” YouTube videos, the Let’s Play Gaming Expo is a rookie in the world of nerd fests, but the organizers of the event, including Trey Fondren, promise to make a big splash.
“We’ll have 75 to 100 arcade games set up on free play and more than 80 vendor tables,” he says. “Plus, we will have a Smash Bros. tournament, a Classic Tetris World Championship bracket tournament, a Mortal Kombat X tournament and much more, including panels and special guests.”
Let’s Play will cater to fans of modern gaming, but Fondren says the show will offer entertainment for retro gamers as well. Vintage video games are huge right now, thanks in part to those who grew up playing Atari and Nintendo having discretionary income to spend on classic games, and to “moms and dads sharing their gaming history with their kids.”
For the typical game convention, the word “retro” means Space Invaders, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros. and the like. That’s true of Let’s Play Gaming Expo as well, but Fondren says they are literally going old-school with an official World Adult Kickball Association Four Square Tournament.
“I won’t be around for any video games,” Fondren says, laughing. “I’ll be outside on the pavement, sweating and playing four square. I’m going to dominate.”
Plano Centre, 2000 E. Spring Creek Pkwy., Plano. One-day ticket $15; weekend pass $25; letsplaygamingexpo.com
The National Videogame Museum Grand Opening
September
While there’s no official date as of yet, the directors of the National Videogame Museum in Frisco are on schedule to open the facility to the public sometime in September. The museum — the first of its kind in the country — is largely the work of Joe Santulli, John Hardie and Sean Kelly, who have collected video games and related materials since the 1970s, and who have hosted the Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas (and occasionally Silicon Valley) for a decade and a half.
For the past few years, in order to raise funds and awareness, the tireless trio has traveled the country, setting up temporary Videogame History Museum (their original title for the venture) exhibits at such industry events as the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco and South by Southwest in Austin.
Their goal all along was to establish a permanent residence for the nonprofit museum, a dream come true thanks to the city of Frisco, which last year committed 10,400 square feet and nearly $1 million to the project. The money will cover startup costs and help fund the construction of a larger facility (50,000 square feet.) to even better showcase the collection.
According to Santulli, the museum will be interactive, meaning you’ll be able to play many of the games as well as look at them and read about their history. The collection will span the entire spectrum of video games, from cartridges to consoles to comic books starring video-game characters and beyond.
“The museum will represent everything from the birth of video gaming to whatever system is current,” Santulli says. “It will include games, peripherals, publications, memorabilia, handhelds, video footage, strategy guides and much more. We’re trying to leave no stone unturned. We really want what we do to be a comprehensive, all-inclusive look at the rich history of video games.”
Frisco Discovery Center, 8004 N. Dallas Pkwy, Frisco. www.nvmusa.org
Retropalooza
Sept. 26-27
Now in its third year, Retropalooza, as its name suggests, focuses on vintage video games, as well as retro pop culture in general. Dozens of vendors will be on hand, selling classic game cartridges, old comic books, vintage toys and other such items.
The convention is hosted by locals “Shady” Jay and Billy Hunter, whose super-popular YouTube show, “The Game Chasers,” is essentially American Pickers for video-game fans.
Hunter sees retro gaming as a way to recapture the past.
“We wanted a place where everyone can buy, sell and trade video games, and rekindle and retouch that part of your childhood,” he says. “Everyone has played Mario, everyone has played Zelda. We’re just a bunch of middle-aged men reliving our childhood.”
While Retropalooza does indeed offer more fun than any grown man should have, it’s intended for everyone.
“The goal of Retropalooza is to bring nerds from all walks of life together for an enjoyable, family-friendly time,” Hunters says. “Good, old-fashioned fun with like-minded people.”
Like most gaming conventions, Retropalooza offers cosplay, tournaments and arcades and consoles set on free play. There will be guest panels as well, featuring such YouTube personalities as ProJared, AlphaOmegaSin, Matthew Patrick (Game Theory), Jirard “Dragon Rider” Khalil (The Completionist), Norman Caruso (The Gaming Historian), Pat Contri (Pat the NES Punk) and Andre Meadows, who hosts Black Nerd Comedy.
At last year’s Retropalooza, Meadows entertained the crowd with jokes, impersonations, music and more, all to the amusement of a room full of fans.
Arlington Convention Center, 1200 Ballpark Way, Arlington. One-day ticket Saturday $25, Sunday $20; free for children age 12 and younger; weekend pass $30. retropalooza.net.
Brett Weiss is the author of the “Classic Home Video Games” series (McFarland Publishers) and of “The 100 Greatest Console Video Games: 1977-1987” (Schiffer Publishing).
This story was originally published July 8, 2015 at 8:39 PM with the headline "DFW now a hotbed for video game culture."