Back for the Pac Attack

Pop culture is a snake eating its own tail in a never-ending Moebius strip, and video games are no exception. 20th Anniversary Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga combination machines are common sights at arcades, restaurants and bars. Classic video game devices fly off the shelves at electronics stores. Online traders swap video games in Napster-like networks of dubious legality. Even The Matrix Revolutions was looking like Tron in Keanu-vision by the end. And trendy stores like Hot Topic and Gadzooks stock T-shirts with logos and sayings that are probably older than the kids buying them. My personal favorite shirt quotes an old saying among gaming nerds: “If video games affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in darkened rooms munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.” It probably wasn’t nearly as ironic back in the days before raves.

Caroline Courtney intently plays a round of ‘Ms. Pac-Man’ at ’80s Night at the Melody Inn.

The games still have their appeal. I once watched the members of the 1980s revival band Terminal Bliss, wiped out after a concert, perk up considerably when someone mentioned there would be Atari games at the place where they were staying. And it’s not just 20somethings reliving their youth; some of the most active members of the online classic video game community are barely out of high school.

Jonathan Hersey, assistant manager of Electronics Boutique in Castleton, said that their Atari joysticks with built-in games are popular items.

“We only get them in at Christmastime, but they’re huge sellers. They’re seasonal items, but if we had them all year round, they’d sell well all the time,” Hersey said. “People don’t come in looking for them. People see them as they’re coming in, they say, ‘Oh, hey, I remember that game.’ And then they pick them up. It’s great because they play straight through the TV; you select whatever game you want; and you’re good to go.”

Another source for old games is to buy the arcade cabinets themselves at auction, such as the one run several times a year by Ric Stephan and the crew of U.S. Amusement Auctions at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

Stephan is an old-school gamer. He used to run an arcade featuring mostly pinball games back in the 1970s, until video technology changed everything.

“In 1981, Pac-Man started it all off. It got everything going. It got women involved,” Stephan said. “It was so simple. One joystick, four directions, going around and around, eating everything in sight. Anyone could play. I once met a guy with one arm who told me Pac-Man was the only video game he could play.”

The crowds at his auctions gather around the games like kids plastered to the Dragon’s Lair screens of yesteryear. They bring their own extension cords to plug in the machines and try them out. It’s like God’s own arcade where the quarters never run out. Some of the buyers are professionals looking to extend their collections; others are interested parties looking to add a neat conversation piece to the house; still others are families with children.

“Everything goes in cycles,” Stephan said. “The kids who played Pac-Man, Zaxxon and Tron back in the 1980s are in their 20s and 30s now. It’s a nostalgia trip. They’re buying them as a decoration, as a novelty piece. They want this stuff in their home.”