With the 2014 Midwest Gaming Classic just hours away from starting, I thought I would share my 2009 interview with Dan Loosen; one of the co-founders of the event!
Talking Classics with Dan Loosen:
Mike Mertes: So Dan, first and foremost I’d like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to interview you! Now the Midwest Gaming Classic had its first event in 2001, but let us rewind! When did your run in with video games start and how did your time playing them ultimately lead up to starting an event like the Midwest Gaming Classic?
Dan: I first got involved with video games as early as I can remember. My dad bought an Atari 2600 when I was very young, and I always remember having it growing up. As I got older, the Nintendo Entertainment System came out, and I really wanted one but my parents thought it was basically the same as the 2600, and they said that we already had a game system so we didn’t need another. I was disappointed, but my dad was a huge rummage sale person, and I would tag along with him, with my meager allowance in tow, and find Atari 2600 games for sale as cheap as a quarter. I started slowly amassing a collection of 2600 games because it was all that I could play at the time, and after a few years, I saved up enough to buy my own NES, and then it started all over again.
On top of that, I got into arcade games at a young age thanks to my grandpa. Whenever I was off school on a Friday when my parents were working, he would take care of me, and part of the deal was that he would have bowling league on Fridays, so I would have to accompany him to the bowling alley. He would give me money to play the arcade machines, and I spent many a Friday playing Mario Bros. and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with the other kids.
I never played pinball until the early 90s because I thought it was all luck, and with video games I could stretch my quarters by being more skilled. That opinion changed when I was at Summerfest one year and was in an arcade tent while my parents were off watching some band, and I watched someone play the new Jurassic Park machine for practically 30 minutes straight, and I realized there must be more there than just luck. None of these addictions ever stopped. I’ve jokingly called the Midwest Gaming Classic the “ultimate event for me”, although that is more or less how it works. Gary and I sit own and we try to figure out the stuff that we would want to see the most, and then we try to meld the event around those areas. The people who volunteer for the show, of which there are many awesome people that do, contribute their own things to the show too. So in some strange way, the Midwest Gaming Classic is like my own collection and interests cranked up to 11, as the old saying goes.
Mike: Were you involved with the video game industry previously or is your dedication to the event simply for the love of the game?
Dan: I would say that I was loosely involved. Gary and I have been friends ever since we started staying after school in 5th grade to program BASIC on Apple computers, and we had always been interested in making games or doing something in the industry in the future.
We were both collecting for the Atari Jaguar at the time, and someone who had stated that he was going to be producing games for the Lynx and the Jaguar and I got into a bit of an argument, and he said that if I thought that I was so good, I should send a sample of our work. So I did… a program Gary and I wrote in 7th grade that was a Space Invaders clone, and this guy was so interested that he offered to buy us a development kit if we would sell the game through him.
We agreed, and in 1999 we traveled to an event called Jagfest in Minnesota which celebrated the Atari Jaguar and Lynx to tell people what we were hoping to do, and to show people the Atari Lynx dev kit so they would know we were serious. It was a great time.
Unfortunately, after that event, the developer got a lot of seed money in the dot-com bubble, and because we didn’t want to redesign our web site every two months, we got more or less fired. Long story short, because we had some things we wanted to do, we established the GOAT Store as a hobby, and then offered to host our first event in 2001, which was the fifth annual Jagfest event. So, while we never really were fully involved with the industry, we had plans to be involved. We did actually achieve our dream of producing (although not creating) games on the Dreamcast in future years directly as a result of the show, however.
Mike: To you, what makes a game console and its games retro/classic? For example, some people call the Playstation 2 and the original Xbox classic, simply because they are no longer the current gen system. Others call the Playstation 1 and Nintendo 64 classic. Where do you draw the line?
Dan: We get asked this question relatively often, and it was actually something that we first established just after the 2001 event. At the time, my cousin who was probably about 9 at the time would visit me and whenever he would, he would ask to play Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. In 2001, when we were discussing what the event would become in 2002, he had stopped by and declared that Sonic Adventure was “probably the best game ever made.” Which, to him, it was a classic. The Dreamcast at that point in time was still a current console, but the fact that he had declared a game on it to be his favorite really opened our eyes as to what made a classic, and made us expand our interpretation of it.
To me, anything that you play and then fondly remember the time that you played it means it is a ‘classic’ game to you.It’s the memories that define what a classic is, and it is up to each individual to decide what that is. Because of that, we incorporate all sorts of video games from all eras, and it is up to the individuals at the show to decide what their favorites are. I would say that Guitar Hero World Tour definitely falls under the ‘classic game’ moniker, and we do have a tournament highlighting it for instance. If you are someone who looks back at the 2600 like
I do and remembers everything that it was, then the 2600 may be what you call a classic.
Mike: Having your gaming roots go all the way back to Atari to the NES and beyond; what is your stance on emulation? Do you feel that re-releases of games on Wii Shop/Xbox Live Arcade/Playstation Network devalue the original copies of the games at all? Do you think gamers from the next generation are missing the original feeling of these games by emulating them?
Dan: Emulation is an interesting topic. From having produced four games for the Dreamcast, emulation for the sake of piracy, especially during the lifespan of a console, I think is reprehensible. All four of our Dreamcast games were pirated and shared shortly after their release, and considering that the GOAT Store is not a huge company, it is tough knowing that something that you worked on can be stolen by other people who feel that they “deserve” the games because we “make enough money anyway,” which is what I actually heard about our games. So illegally downloading and playing stuff that you don’t own is a touchy topic to me, especially because companies do deserve the right to make money on those properties in the future I believe, whether they are flush with cash or not.
Now, having said that, legal emulation in the current generation is both great and at the same time, a little bothersome to me. I like it because it encourages people to check out games that they might not have otherwise been able to get. Probably 50% of my current generation stuff is the “Collection” games, and I definitely think that they have a place.
Gaming has exploded in the past, and without some of these collections, prices for certain games would be absurd right now otherwise, and without sources like the marketplaces on the current consoles, companies might not be willing to test the market to see if it is still there for these old games. The flip side though is that I feel like developers should put at least some measure of time into each release to do something unique to make it worth getting the new version. A great example is what Nintendo has done with Super Mario Bros. I have it for the NES, but I also have slightly different version for the SNES and Game Boy Color. These additions made it well worth me spending my money to get the other versions too, although I do still hang onto my original.
I guess at the end of the day, for most of the older consoles I have all the games that I want already, so unless the developer puts time into it to make it appealing to me to purchase again, I’m not going to spend the money again. But for those people who don’t have the original consoles, the legal console marketplaces are a great way to experience some of these old games.
As for the topic of it devaluing the original copies of the games, I remember in 2006 when there was one guy at the Midwest Gaming Classic who asked me what I thought about how when the Wii came out, all of the GOAT Store’s games would be “worthless.” I told him that I wasn’t worried about it at all, as if you’ve held onto a console for 20 years to play 10 games on it, I didn’t see anyone selling that console to pay to play the same games on another console, and so far that has proven to be true. In fact, while there is sometimes a short loss of value in some classic games when they are re-released or a new version comes out, it is often followed by the game increasing in value in the future, as people decide that they want to collect every game that was released for that series since they found whatever it was so much fun. For instance, I loved Earthbound so much when I first played it that I purposely went out and sought the Japanese versions of the game just so I could put them with my copy of Earthbound on the shelf. The same thing occurs with classic games, and since there are now more gamers than ever before, it means that the games hold their prices rather well.
Mike: Having worked on a few Dreamcast Projects, what do you think about the opportunity that Microsoft gives people to produce games on the PC and Xbox 360 with XNA? Would you and Gary ever take a shot at producing something on XNA?
Dan: The Dreamcast releases that we did were fascinating because they happened in almost a perfect scenario where there were people who wanted to develop new games for consoles, but did not have the ability to do so because the cost for entry was so high. The Dreamcast was legally reverse engineered during its lifespan, which made it a magnet for people to try to figure out tricks for programming neat stuff, and the console saw a lot of really cool stuff because of this. Programmers who were first entering the job market and wanted to show their skills could use the Dreamcast as a platform to experiment with, and then show developers what they could do. What we did was especially unique, because we were releasing fully realized and complete games for a console that prove that the developers understood how to truly complete a game and work the bugs out of it. A lot of our developers were offered to develop other titles or were hired into the gaming industry because of what they did on the Dreamcast.
The XNA removes the barriers that basically everyone used to have — simply put, that development kits cost far too much for anyone not a huge company to get, and that small experimental games were something developers could once again do because the cost for entry again is much lower. I think that the XNA and what Microsoft particularly has done is nothing short of genius for keeping new talent coming in, and perhaps for developing new games and gameplay elements that people might have otherwise never took a chance on. In fact, a number of games that were in development for us to publish got moved into XNA projects because of the easy entry that the system allowed, and I think that’s great.
Creative games need to find an outlet in the marketplace, no matter how they get there. We were honored to have four very creative games so far that we were able to produce. That may be all that we do, although there are a few more that may still occur in the future. But regardless, as long as there is a creative output, I’m happy no matter where it comes from.
As for us moving into helping do production work for the XNA, we’re really happy with the work we did with the Dreamcast and what the GOAT Store focuses on now, which is the collector who wants the physical copies of games from the past. If an opportunity fell into our laps, we would definitely explore it further, but I think the likelihood of us moving any of our resources onto that platform would be slim to none.
Mike: Focusing on the event, how long does it typically take to plan it each year? As you mentioned you have many volunteers; how does one volunteer?
Dan: Honestly, it is hard to quantify exactly how much it takes to plan each event because it is a ton. Unlike a lot of similar shows that exist or have existed, a big portion of our show is having tons of content for people to experience when they are at the show. Whether it is pinball machines set up for people to play, or the largest gaming museum that we know of, the event has tons of different things that each take hundreds of hours of work to put together. All combined, I’m sure the time people invest into the show is well into the thousands of hours each year.
As for planning for the next year, we actually start doing things as early as two or more years in advance of the show. We don’t figure out the details until closer to the show, but we decided about nine months ago that we wanted to look into some potential different
locations for 2010, and we’ve been working on that a lot lately. As for the actual content and how things will be changed, on the Sunday night after the show is when our first meeting is held to quickly discuss what we thought worked, what failed and what we can do to improve the following year. After that point, we are constantly doing things for the show up until the moment that the show kicks off the next year!
If someone is interested in volunteering to help with the event, the best thing they can do is contact us through the web site. We have a great core of people, but we are always looking for more people to help the show grow and evolve, and if people are interested in helping in any way, they should contact us to see what they can do. If you don’t want to do anything formally, we also have a Promote section of our site where you can download fliers to hand out or link to the site using banners and stuff like that. We appreciate every little bit that anyone can do to help us get the word out!
Mike: Any tips for first time attendees of the event?
Dan: It really depends on who you are and what you are and what you are looking to get out of the event, but there are a couple things that I think can benefit all attendees.
First, just because you have never seen it before doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try it. We wanted to present the most amount of electronic games available in one place, and I have heard some attendees say that they were disappointed in the show because they collect for a certain system and have 99% of the stuff for that system, and they didn’t get to buy or see anything they didn’t own for that system. That isn’t our goal — the goal of the show is to present everyone with a variety of things so you can get together with friends and fondly remember the games from the past that you might not see much any more, and also try stuff that may be totally new to you. Have an open mind about it, and don’t expect to see the crazy rare stuff. And with that open mind, you might find stuff that you had never thought about that you like. I can’t tell you how many people now own or are looking at purchasing a pinball machine for themselves because of how fun they discovered they were at the show.
Secondly, be willing to walk up to someone and talk with them. Most of the people that attend the show are there just to have fun and look around, just like most first time attendees are. Walking up and challenging someone to a game of Wii Bowling or Double Dragon or Jurassic Park pinball is a perfect icebreaker to learn more about that person and what brought them out to the show. Most attendees will welcome the chance to chat with you, and I can honestly say that I have a whole bunch of people that I talk with because I met them and talked with them at the show who I now know outside of it. The reason the show was ultimately founded was because Gary and I had been part of a very close knit Atari Jaguar community who wanted to see each other in real life. While the show itself is fun, meeting up with friends and hanging out is what makes the experience as memorable as it really is I think, and that is one of my favorite parts of the whole thing.
Finally, if there is something that you really want to see or do, plan it out ahead of time. The show is scheduled in a way that does make it impossible to see and do everything that happens, but knowing what the schedule is and deciding a few things that you really want to see can help structure your day a bit. Also, if you can only make it one day, consider Sunday. While the events of the day are a little lighter than Saturday, the crowds are generally smaller, so you can see what you want quicker than otherwise.
Mike: I see you’ve had a couple of big names such as Walter Day come to the event. Are any big gaming stars scheduled to attend?
We’re always in talks with different people to come out to the show and talk about their lives in gaming. The biggest two new names that we have currently confirmed for the show is Dennis Nordman and John Trudeau who are both famous for designing some spectacular pinball machines. Dennis Nordman did popular games like Demolition Man and Pirates of the Caribbean, while John Trudeau did machines like Judge Dredd and Creature from the Black Lagoon.
We also have some awesome people returning. Ben Heckendorn, from benheck.com for instance generally did a speech, but this year he is expanding to take up a whole area with the benheck.com experience, a place where people can see and watch people modify consoles into portable versions and hear about how it was done throughout the day. Trickman Terry and Sushi X from 90s EGM fame will be back and heading up another new section of the show where they will talk about their new venture and do little mini events throughout the day. We’re in contact with a number of other people, but I can’t confirm anything. For that, I just suggest that people keep watching the web site, as you never know who might turn up!
Mike: Finally, is there anything you would like to say to everyone about the event?
I just wanted to highlight the one thing that I think makes this event so much different than almost anything else out there — The Midwest Gaming Classic is an event put on by gamers, for gamers. Gary and I founded this event because we wanted to get a group of friends together to play games and have fun in real life. It was such a blast that first year that we wanted to expand it and expand it, and every year it has expanded to a point we could have never imagined when we held our first event with under 100 people at it.
We are a very unique event because we want to highlight what everyone finds great about gaming. Everyone is welcome, and the show only succeeds because a number of people believe in the goal of showing how unique and fun gaming can be. If it wasn’t for everyone who is involved in the show on a yearly basis, the show would have been dead and buried years ago. But those individuals always step up to the plate and deliver an amazing experience that I’m just honored to be a part of it.
I can’t wait for this year’s show, and I hope to see you there!