The Hall of Fame weekend event started on Friday, October 3rd, with “Ottumwa’s Old School Pinball and Arcade” hosting a 1980’s Vinyl night. This event would be open to the public and, based on the package you purchased, you would be able to play games, meet some of the inductees, and enjoy 1980’s music played with old time records via live DJ. Local restaurant Bubba-Q’s sponsored the event and offered a buffet of food and beverages for the evening. T-shirts and other items were available for purchase and would come with some of the packages bought at the entrance. The event started at 7:00 PM and lasted until 11 PM. Outside the arcade were vendors selling gaming and collectible items for those interested. Ottumwa’s Video Game Capital of the World Interactive Museum was moved into the arcade this year, so anyone at the party could enjoy the history of gaming and the items donated to the museum by gamers across the county.
The International Video Game Hall of Fame, Class of 2019, took place in Ottumwa, Iowa on October 5th, 2019. The MC of the evening was former Hall of Fame inductee and Joust World Champion, Lonnie McDonald. Donald Hayes was fully dressed up for the occasion and joked about how his wardrobe was like seeing Big Foot. Jeff Peters accepted the award and reminisced how the last time he was in Ottumwa was back the 1980’s when he used to sleep in the arcade. Brian Colin accepted his award with excitement and energy. He thanked many people for his success and keeping his Rampage and other older games relevant in the arcades and other forms of media. Rick and Cara Barretto took the stage to accept the induction for their charitable group Video Game Palooza. Rick started the speech off by thanking many of the people involved with his charitable works. Cara followed Rick with an emotional speech as she was so grateful for the honor. During the ceremony there was a “In Memorium” video that was played to remember the past inductees that we sadly lost. These Included Massaya Nakamura, Ralph Baer, Scott Safran, Phil younger from the Class of 2010. Josh Jones from the class of 2015, Satoru Iwata from the class of 2016 and Joel West from the Class of 2017. Inductees Reggie Fils-Aime, Bonnie Ross, David Palmer, Pete Hahn, and Ryan Hart were gracious enough to send in their acceptance speech via video submission. All these videos can be seen on YouTube in its entirety. Read the rest of the article here from Old School Gamer!
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