OKGE Expo Report

**icbrkr** · 09-20-2003, 07:12 PM

Just got back from the Oklahoma Gaming Expo, am currently unpacking all my stuff that I had out for display and sale. It was fun! Since this was my first time being part of a show instead of just showing up, I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

I met some interesting people, and some too interesting people. Most were very nice and I ended up talking more than I thought I would since I was half asleep from getting up at 5AM.

The show went well... I was displaying an SX64 (playing Creatures 2), Astrocade (playing Muncher and Cosmic Raiders), Intellivision II with all the attachments (playing Bump n Jump, B17 Bomber, Thin Ice and a few 2600 games with the system changer), and a CD32 (playing Sleepwalker, Pinball Fantasies, and Super Stardust). Most of the responses I got were... "what the hell is that?!" while either pointing to the CD32 or Astrocade.

I managed to win a doorprize - Earl's boxed Odyssey 300 pong machine - I finally have a pong machine for my collection! Thanks Earl!

I almost had a bad note to end this on.. half way through the Astrocade overheated and crapped out on me. Even after I let it cool off for 30 mins, it still wouldn't fire back up. On a good note, when it got home, it fired up just fine.

Overall, great show!

**icbrkr** · 09-20-2003, 08:56 PM

Added some pictures from the OKGE on my website:

http://www.particles.org/okge/pics.html

Now.. off to bed!

**Flack** · 09-20-2003, 10:58 PM

OKGE was indeed a great show. I have never been to a show like this before, so I was pretty excited to find a bunch of people who dig old games as much as I do. I took a lot of pictures too, mostly to convince my wife that the boxes of electronics I have amassed out in the garage are "treasure" and not "junk" or a "fire hazard".

I thought some of the bigger vendors had more boring tables than most of the individuals. Amini's, for example, had an empty table with no people at it, and two video games -- a Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga split, and a MAME machine that seemed to spend more time in Windows than it did playing games (at least while I was there). In contrast, most of the individuals who were showing off their systems had things up and running and were more than happy to talk about anything on their table.

Seeing a Treamcast (sp?) and the Amiga CD console (I never even heard of that) in person were pretty cool, as were the Atari prototypes on display from AtariMuseum and the killer stuff AtariAge had on display. Plus I got to meet and talk to Earl for a few minutes about gaming and Tron figures, and drool over many of the classic systems that were on display.

I'll try and get my pictures online in the morning.

Flack

**Phosphor Dot Fossils** · 09-21-2003, 02:14 AM

Been back home for a while...just recovering. I too haven't had much sleep in the past three days.

OKGE was a blast. In some ways, it was a bit of a culture shock going from CGE (my first gaming show ever) as a visitor to OKGE (my second ever) as an exhibitor. Fortunately, my wife and I talked my friend Kent into going with me, and it's a good thing too - I was so exhausted that I actually leaned back against the wall and slept for an hour and a half after lunch. And I wake up and Kent is still explaining the Odyssey to everybody. He doesn't lurk here, despite my best efforts, but he's worthy of honorary membership. If anyone got a picture of me snoozing at my table - I want to see it!

Great to meet everyone, great to see everyone's stuff (including that big shiny Astrocase of icbrkr's), and really great to see so many families and kids showing up to play my stuff. The #1 item of interest at my tables? The Magnavox Odyssey. People flocked to that thing, just because it looks and plays like nothing else. Families would come and camp out in front of it for what seemed like ages. I was thrilled to give them a chance to try it.

I'm gonna hazard a guess that 200-300 people showed. Not bad for a first time outing. Jess Hardesty (and his whole family) worked their butts off to make this happen, and they deserve a huge round of applause. And his mom owns your ass on 2600 Frogger, by the way.

I'll have lots and lots of photos on my site in the next week or so. For now, here's just a sampling.

**Mayhem** · 09-21-2003, 05:54 AM

Originally Posted by icbrkr

I was displaying an SX64 (playing Creatures 2)

I presume that crack was NTSC fixed

Interesting that you chose a British game to display there heh...

**icbrkr** · 09-21-2003, 07:44 AM

Originally Posted by Mayhem

Originally Posted by icbrkr

I was displaying an SX64 (playing Creatures 2)

I presume that crack was NTSC fixed

Interesting that you chose a British game to display there heh...

Umm... gee, I don't know what you mean

Most of the really good graphically released C64 games were released in the 90s, right about the time the US all but quit caring about the system. And besides, people got a kick out of getting Clyde to save other creatures from certain torture!

**Mayhem** · 09-21-2003, 08:00 AM

Definitely... it's a quality game, and one which most, if not all, people there probably hadn't seen before, let alone played.

I ended up getting my guide to the game printed in the legendary UK C64 magazine Zzap!64

http://www.mayhem64.co.uk/c2guide.htm

**Flack** · 09-21-2003, 10:26 PM

I would consider myself somewhat of an "outsider" when it comes to a lot of this. I've only been coming to this website for about two months, and only found out about this convention from Earl's signature (and I'm so glad I did!). Anyway, here's a look at the OKGE through a stranger's eyes.

Shot of the Intellivision giveaway. The friend I bought with me was not very excited about attending the show until he heard they were giving away an Intellivision -- when he heard that, he went crazy. Turns out he had one as a kid, and got very excited at the idea of owning one as an adult. The glass case in the rear of the room held many cool Atari prototypes on loan from AtariMuseum.com.

Games were being played at almost every table. No "hands off" stuff here. Most of the people at the show were hardcore gamers, like this guy to the right. As you can see, he is so good he can kick ass and not even look at the screen at the same time.

I am much better at playing games than I am at taking pictures. Here is a shot of Earl's booth. To the right you can see the Odysseys on display. The middle television had a Playstation controller bigger than a Commodore disk drive. On top of the monitors you can see some of Earl's cool Tron and Q-Bert collectables, which are also visible on his website.

Some things never go out of style. I smiled a bit when I saw "Pitfall" hanging out in the "semi-rares" box. The Ms. Pac-Man sign behind the box was not for sale. This table also had several classic Video Game marquees for sale, and also a Playstation playing some of the old classic collection games (I did pretty well on Yie-Ar Kung-Fu, if I do say so myself.)

Here is a view of Atari Age's table, with some of the new/homebrew games on display (that's Homestar Runner in the middle, and Space Invaders Collection on the left). Hanging on the wall were ladies Atari shirts. I think I saw two ladies the entire day.

Here is the Arcade PC, for sale by Amini's. No price tag on it, which I assume means "if you have to ask you don't need it." You can see convenient access to a keyboard in the front, and the MAME front end running on the monitor.

I believe this is Icebreaker's table, by his post. Cool Intellivision stuff, cool keyboard, cool Astrocade, and a cool, cool, cool Amiga console, something I had never seen or heard of before! Just goes to show you, there's always something you missed.

Here is another video game on display from Amini's. The Quasicade, I believe, has a PS2 in the back of it. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Here is a shot of Warpzone's table. If you were looking for boxed Atari or Intellivision games, this was a great place to pick some up!

Aha! The elusive Treamcast. Probably the only one I'll ever see in person. That's a Dreamcast MP3 player in the package sitting next to it.

These guys were playing yucky new games on sickeningly fast hardware. Boo, hiss! Go get some 386's and game like a man! I razzed them repeatedly but with their headphones on, they couldn't hear me. JUST kidding ...

This was the SNES Kart challenge table, although in this picture no one is playing Mario Kart.

This was the table you saw right as you walked in. Lots of cool Atari stuff. As a gamer and casual collector, I had not seen many of these label variations on carts before.

Although the guy playing this game thought I was taking a picture of him, this is actually a photo of all the cool Commodore stuff on display. I took this photo to shut my wife up once and for all -- see, all my old Commodore stuff DOES belong on display! So there!

Nice Vectrex system to the left there, by the way.

All in all I had a very good time. I would recommend dropping by any convention near you. It's a good place to buy, sell, or just have some great conversations about "the good ol' days."

Flack

**Duncan** · 09-21-2003, 10:57 PM

Great post, Flack. And pretty good pictures, too, actually!

Wish there were something like this near me. Maybe there is; if so, I've never heard about it.

Duncan

**icbrkr** · 09-22-2003, 05:23 PM

Originally Posted by Flack

I would consider myself somewhat of an "outsider" when it comes to a lot of this. I've only been coming to this website for about two months, and only found out about this convention from Earl's signature (and I'm so

Great pictures! I've gotta ask you to describe yourself since you took pictures of my stuff... who the heck were you?

I talked to a bunch of people I didn't know were on here until I saw posts from them later.

Brian

**Flack** · 09-22-2003, 07:07 PM

That's from a month or so ago. I lost the goatee a couple of days before OKGE due to a "shaving incident" ...

Flack

**Phosphor Dot Fossils** · 09-22-2003, 07:53 PM

Flack was there, icbrkr, Pick Axe Pete/Timelord, and others. As much press as OKGE got on AtariAge, I was a bit surprised I didn't get to see more AA people there. I printed up about 100 little full-color cards advertising my site, and had 13 left when we broke down the PDF tables. This can't help but be a Good Sign.

**icbrkr** · 09-22-2003, 08:21 PM

Originally Posted by Phosphor Dot Fossils

Flack was there, icbrkr, Pick Axe Pete/Timelord, and others. As much press as OKGE got on AtariAge, I was a bit surprised I didn't get to see more AA people there. I printed up about 100 little full-color cards advertising my site, and had 13 left when we broke down the PDF tables. This can't help but be a Good Sign.

Things I need to do next time....

BTW, your avatar scares me for some reason