For years, Portland Retro Gaming Expo was something I experienced through other people’s YouTube videos. I’d watch someone wander through a sea of old games, meet people whose names were printed in my manuals, and come home with some impossibly specific object I didn’t even know existed. It was exactly my kind of thing. It increasingly became something I would get around to one of these years.
This year, I finally went. From October 9 through 11, I spent three days at the Oregon Convention Center exploring PRGE’s vendor floor, playing games, attending panels, and talking to pretty much anyone who would entertain a conversation about their weird obsessions. There were a lot of weird obsessions. I was in excellent company.
I had a few purchases in mind and some people I really wanted to meet, but I also wanted time to actually enjoy being there. That turned out to be important. The weekend delivered on the things I’d planned, then repeatedly interrupted those plans with something even better.
Friday: CREDIT 01 / PRESS START
Friday began at the completely unreasonable hour of about four in the morning. I flew from San Jose to Portland, surviving both a boarding-system outage and a cockpit-window problem before taking the MAX light rail practically to the door of my hotel. The Hyatt was directly across from the convention center. I checked in, showered, dropped my luggage, and walked over with the whole convention day still ahead of me.
Before the floor even opened, I got distracted by an enormous Spyro statue. This was not somebody’s oversized craft project. Its owner, Julia, who goes by ‘Momo,’ told me it was an original E3 display piece that had spent years missing before she found it at a gas-station property. According to her, the discovery began with what looked like Spyro’s eyeball visible through a tiny tinted window into a boarded-up storage area. She got her boyfriend to confirm that, yes, there appeared to be a dragon in there.
The property owner offered to let her take it, although she paid him anyway, and she went on to restore it. I had initially assumed she was just there to display the statue. Instead, I got a whole conversation about rescuing a lost piece of gaming history from a gas station. The doors were still closed and somebody had already told me a story I couldn’t wait to repeat.
Once inside, I discovered that a carefully planned route through a vendor hall becomes considerably less useful when every time you turn your head there’s another distraction. Friday initially felt like trying to follow directions while somebody continuously opened new tabs in my brain.
One of those distractions was a Nintendo Switch feeding its video into a modified Game Boy Advance SP. I actually opened Breath of the Wild on this thing. An elaborate chain of converters had been assembled to let a perfectly good modern game run on an absurdly small screen, and I respected the commitment immediately.
The first object that I had to take with me was at a booth called Gaijin Mart: an enormous Prinny plush perched on the highest shelf, looking down on the convention with entirely unearned authority. For the unfamiliar, a Prinny is the blue penguin-like mascot from Disgaea, a series I love dearly. This one had a red scarf, indicating that he was a limited collectible version of the plush, and a wonderfully round body. I visited him, left, returned to inspect him, left again, and made it approximately nowhere before coming back a third time to buy him.
This solved the problem of not owning the Prinny. It introduced the problem of carrying the Prinny. He was too large and spherical to fit comfortably into my bag, so I proceeded through the convention hugging him against my torso.
Which is how I met Tom DuBois.
Tom painted some of the classic Konami cover art, including Super Castlevania IV and Contra III. I looked up, saw his name above the booth, and found him sitting there without anyone at his table. There wasn’t much of a thought process between recognizing him and walking over. I expected to introduce myself, say I loved his work, and have a brief chat. Instead, he stood up and gave me his full attention.
He told me about drawing soldiers fighting monsters when he was young, then finding himself doing commercial illustration for decidedly less exciting subjects. He was creating art for packaging work, cereal advertising, and a lot of background assets rather than the action. Eventually, his cousin who remembered those soldiers and monsters helped connect him with Konami. Hearing the path from ordinary commercial art to the paintings I’d spent years admiring on box/label art was fascinating, especially from someone so happy to tell the story.
The part that really stuck with me was how he described working from VHS tapes of gameplay that Konami would send him. I asked how much direction Konami gave him beyond that footage, and his answer made the freedom he had sound extraordinary. Look at those games, then look at the paintings: the violence, movement, impossible architecture, creatures lunging out of the darkness. He wasn’t just copying a screenshot into a more expensive medium.
I told him that when I play Castlevania, his artwork is what I picture in my head. The sprites are doing their thing on the screen, but the world they inhabit feels like one of his paintings. He seemed genuinely touched, and every answer he gave me led naturally to another question.
Throughout this entire conversation, I was still hugging the fucking Prinny. I was having a sincere discussion about the relationship between illustration and imagination while holding a giant penguin like a nervous parent at a school conference. Tom, to his credit, carried on without treating any of this as unusual. We agreed I’d bring my cartridge back for him to sign the next day.
My next memorable contribution to the vendor floor was less beneficial to the community. At another booth, I spotted a sealed Devil Summoner 2 collector’s edition, the one with a Jack Frost plush dressed as Raidou. I already owned it, but it reminded me of the ordeal I’d gone through fixing my own copy. The plush had become badly displaced inside the packaging, and I’d spent about two hours coaxing it back into position without opening the box. A perfectly normal use of an adult’s time.
I enthusiastically told the seller about this achievement. He looked at his own copy, apparently reconsidered its value, and decided his price was too low. Then he printed a higher price tag and put it on the box, right in front of me. ಠ_ಠ
Some people go to conventions and negotiate great deals. I had now successfully negotiated a worse deal for some sucker who wasn’t even there yet. I was laughing, but I did feel a little guilty. Sorry to whoever came along after me, I was only trying to talk about my snowman!!
Later, at Lumis Games, a tub of DS titles produced a much more straightforward victory: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. When I asked about it, another customer reached into the selection and handed it to me before the seller had even worked out where it was. Having loved Order of Ecclesia enough to write about it here, I’d been particularly keen to play more of the DS games. The surrounding selection briefly tempted me into constructing an enormous bundle, but I caught myself. It was only Friday, and the convention had just started.
I dropped the purchases off at the hotel and took a break at Spirit of 77, where a quiet room, friendly bartenders, a pilsner, and a cheeseburger with onion rings brought me back to life. After the sensory assault of the vendor floor, being allowed to sit down and eat something without making another decision felt luxurious.
Back inside, a stop at a custom fight-stick booth led to a conversation with a man named Buddha about arcade controls and music-production gear. We somehow got from replacement buttons to little MIDI devices, and for the rest of the weekend I had another person I could wave to and greet by name.
Then I finally completed one of my main Friday objectives: meeting Robert Belgrade and Michael Guinn, the original English voices of Alucard and Dracula in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I had brought my PlayStation copy for them to sign. If you’ve played the game, you understand why meeting the people responsible for those voices was exciting. If you haven’t, know that Dracula does not approach a conversation with moderation.
Robert, who voiced Alucard, turned out to be a percussionist as well as a voice actor. He explained that he always signs “backwards with his left hand,” as an exercise in coordination. I pointed out how appropriate this was for Alucard, whose name is Dracula backwards, and we both had a good laugh. Apparently, that was not why he’d developed the habit. Sometimes the universe just does the work for you.
Michael told me his Dracula was inspired by Bela Lugosi’s performance in the 1931 film, which I had coincidentally watched just days before the trip. We talked about the performance and its theatricality, and he added Dracula’s iconic Castlevania quotation inside my manual. Between Robert’s silver signature and Michael’s gold one on the cover, I left with a copy of Symphony of the Night that now had two very good conversations attached to it.
The evening belonged to arcade games and pinball. Free play is every bit as good as it sounds: see something interesting, walk up, start playing. I wandered between tables and found a ten-player Bomberman setup on a Sega Saturn that was surrounded by a horrifying quantity of controllers and cables. By the time I returned to the hotel, I was tired, happy, and very ready to do it again.
Saturday: A Trivial Pursuit
Saturday began with Tama Hero standing in the breakfast line at my hotel. I’d followed her Pokémon videos for well over a decade, and I was also planning on attending her panel later that day, so seeing her casually getting food produced a fairly serious double take. It was an awesome kickoff to everything Saturday was going to have in store for me.
Once the convention opened, I went straight for a few things I’d scouted Friday: a sealed big-box Kid Icarus: Uprising, the English-language European version of Learn with Pokémon: Typing Adventure, and a Pokémon Colosseum Bonus Disc. That last one can distribute Jirachi to the Game Boy Advance games, which made it particularly exciting to take home. The seller offered a great deal for all three, and I accepted. I also picked up an enormous vintage Meowth plush whose proportions and construction had completely won me over the day before.
Both purchases were finished in roughly fifteen minutes, which meant I got to walk back toward my hotel carrying a giant Meowth while most of the convention was still walking in. Once Meowth and the games were safely deposited, the rest of Saturday was open.
My first stop back was the VHS swap. Even the line was good: I got talking with a man whose copy of The Last Samurai contained a romantic comedy instead, and told him about the time I’d brought home a Wallace & Gromit tape only to discover All Dogs Go to Heaven inside. These are the hazards of maintaining an interest in obsolete media… We entered together, having established common ground through disappointment.
One of the first tables had a sealed Mac DeMarco 2: Ten Years Later VHS. I love 2, already own it on vinyl, and had no idea this tape existed. Better still, the man selling it was the graphic designer who had worked on the VHS itself. What could have been a quick purchase turned into a conversation about the artwork on the slipcase and how well it captured the album’s personality. There’s something especially satisfying about complimenting a product and discovering that you’re saying it directly to the person who designed it. I happily purchased it.
Another seller had framed Japanese movie posters, including one for the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie and one for Monsters, Inc. Those are two very different cinematic propositions, but both immediately had my attention. Monsters, Inc. is my favorite film, so encountering a Japanese poster for it in the middle of a retro-gaming convention’s VHS swap felt offensively well targeted. At that point there’s not much else to say, except… 『モンスターズ・インク』は単なる映画ではない。私の信仰であり、人類の最高傑作である。サリーとマイクに永遠の栄光あれ！
…Anyway, I bought both. We talked about the movies and the posters, which the seller described as prints preserved from their original releases. I hadn’t arrived intending to buy framed Japanese movie posters, but I also hadn’t expected someone to put those particular two in front of me.
A little farther along, another vendor had displayed his tapes inside a real casket. I asked about it and learned that he also drove a hearse as his regular car. This wasn’t just a booth theme; the man had committed to an entire macabre lifestyle. I bought nothing from him and still considered the conversation a valuable part of my admission.
Next, I had an appointment with some kittens. PRGE had a rescue room where a donation bought time in a tent full of adoptable cats, and I’d booked ten minutes. While waiting, I wandered into a completely unrelated trivia game, answered a question about Sony’s abandoned console collaboration with Nintendo, and won a Minecraft Enderman figure. Naturally, this was all on the way to the cats.
Inside the tent were four extremely playful kittens, one of whom kept trying to climb me. Ten minutes of petting, purring, and waving a toy around turned out to be an excellent convention activity. I thanked the people running it and left feeling that more gaming events should consider allocating floor space to this particular technology. =^..^=
The big event of the afternoon was Tama Hero’s Pokémon trivia panel. I knew her videos well enough to expect actual questions, not just an opportunity to identify Pikachu, and I was very excited to participate. Tama-themed plushes were available as prizes. I wanted one badly enough to get straight into line.
Tama had set up her trivia game like Jeopardy: select a category, and select a difficulty. Answer correctly in front of the crowd, win a plush. For my first attempt, I chose “Mainline Mechanics, Hard.” Her question tasked me with listing every type that makes up the elite four in Pokémon X & Y. If that question sounds ridiculous to you, don’t feel too bad. This question immediately flattened me. Tama generously gave two guesses, which I used to demonstrate that I was capable of being wrong twice. Back to the end of the line I went.
On the second attempt, I downgraded to Medium and got asked which stats Dragon Dance raises. I know this. I have used this move countless times. But the first round had damaged my confidence so thoroughly that I briefly began questioning the foundations of Pokémon in my head: “Attack? Special Attack? Surely not both?” I finally managed to cautiously mutter, “Speed… and… Attack?”
Correct. Plush acquired. Dignity partially recovered.
The rules were not negotiable, either. There was an enormous supply of prizes, but missing the question did not earn you a consolation prize. Hilariously, there were children there that answered multiple questions incorrectly. They received no prizes. As I put it afterward, the plush cost me zero dollars. It cost me everything psychologically. (╥﹏╥)
Tama signed its paper tag after the panel, giving me both a prize I’d actually earned and an autograph to make it special. I was thrilled. But after getting grilled in trivia and now attempting to request autographs, at this point I was rattled, and I left the interaction without asking the other thing I’d been hoping for.
I had brought my Pokéwalker to PRGE. This is the little pedometer accessory that came with Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver: you send a Pokémon onto it, carry it around, and connect it to somebody else’s over infrared. These are my favorite Pokémon games, and SoulSilver is my favorite game, period. Getting to use that strange little accessory with Tama was the possibility I had been quietly carrying around this device for.
After the autograph, I figured I’d missed my chance. I hadn’t managed to bring it up, and I wasn’t going to chase someone around the convention trying to extend an interaction that had already been generous. I went to an empty table to collect myself, grateful for the panel and autograph. At this point, I was “taking the L,” so to speak.
Then Tama and her group sat down at the table immediately next to me.
Not somewhere in the distance. Not at a booth I could theoretically queue for later. Right there. She started mixing records (Pokémon parlance for a data exchange) with someone on Game Boy Advance hardware, and I stood at the neighboring table realizing that the opportunity I had just finished making peace with had returned under substantially better conditions.
I waited until they were done, took out my Pokéwalker, and asked whether she happened to have hers. She said yes, then immediately asked, “Do you want to connect them?”
Yes. That was very much the idea.
I had my shiny Jirachi, obtained through the Pokémon Channel distribution, walking with me. Tama had Ledyba. After the trivia ordeal, I found it extremely funny that the panelist responsible for roasting me in Pokémon trivia had come to the convention with a little ladybug. I liked it even more for being such an unpretentious choice.
We connected the devices. She noticed my Jirachi, asked about it, and then asked which item I’d received from the exchange. I got a rather useless “Rare Bone.” She got Choice Specs, an absolute staple in competitive play. Even in a brief, friendly infrared interaction, Tama had somehow walked away with the better item.
It’s a small thing to describe on paper: two people standing at a table, pointing pedometers at each other. But this was the highlight of my entire weekend. Somebody whose videos had been part of my enjoyment of Pokémon for years was, for a moment, simply another person playing my favorite game with me. The connection even carries into the game through the Pokéwalker Diary and the trainer data you can battle in the Trainer House. She hadn’t just signed something for me; she’d found a permanent, lasting way into my copy of SoulSilver. And at this point, I was happily on my way.
Later, I went to Tom DuBois’ panel. Before we entered, his representative Daniel told the waiting crowd that this was Tom’s first convention and that he was nervous, and asked us to give him a proper welcome. We did. The room erupted when he was introduced, and he seemed almost embarrassed by how much everyone wanted to applaud him.
He had brought tissues, which turned out to be very necessary. While talking about his work and the money that had become attached to some of it, he grew visibly emotional. What came across most strongly was that the art itself had been the point. He’d made these things because he loved making them, and there was something disarming about seeing that feeling become so immediate in front of an entire audience.
Back at his booth, I got talking to Daniel while waiting for Tom. I asked about how he connected artists with conventions, and he told me about finding a composer associated with the Phoenix Wright games in rural Japan. According to Daniel, the man was initially baffled by the idea that he had fans who wanted to meet him. He later attended a convention in Spain and was deeply moved by the reception, so much so that the composer had said “I will remember this on my death bed.” At this point, I’d come over to talk to Tom and now found myself equally moved by the person helping make these meetings possible.
When I finally turned back to Tom, he remembered me from Friday and said he’d seen me in the audience. At one point he told me, “Jackson, I’ll never forget you.” Considering how much time and attention he’d already given me, that was a remarkable thing to hear. He personalized my Super Castlevania IV cartridge, and I bought a print of a Castlevania painting I’d been admiring, which he signed too. Those were going to look very good at home.
The cosplay contest provided a welcome change of pace. A family dressed as Portal characters had one child inside a homemade turret and another carrying an actual potato as GLaDOS. By the time they left the stage, the audience was chanting “Potato!” There was an impressive amount of work in that family cosplay, and a vegetable was enjoying a disproportionate share of the applause.
Over in the museum exhibit, I had my portrait taken through a Game Boy Camera plugged into a Super Game Boy plugged into a Super Nintendo mounted on a tripod. The resulting image arrived by email, a thoroughly modern delivery method for a photograph that appeared to have been taken on the very same potato that was cosplaying as GLaDOS at the cosplay contest moments ago.
A dark room of old computers supplied another unexpected highlight. I sat down to play Windows pinball, struggled to remember the controls, and then a staff member switched on a giant projection of my screen. My private attempt to operate an old computer suddenly had spectators. Fortunately, I got it working and had a respectable run. Nothing improves your technical competence like having it displayed on a wall.
Saturday ended at the live auction, which was considerably more entertaining than I had understood an auction could be. I registered, got a bidder number, and sat beside two men who explained that they’d come just to watch. They had no intention of buying anything. After a few lots, I understood why.
The auctioneer kept finding new ways to argue that a few more dollars were a perfectly reasonable life decision. The merchandise did the rest. Promotional banners, old store displays, a life-size Michael Jackson standee: objects kept appearing that seemed increasingly difficult to explain to somebody who hadn’t attended the convention.
Then came a Star Fox package containing a Jones Soda bottle and a roll of toilet paper covered in printed text. As far as I could tell, the proposed activity was to sit on the toilet, drink the soda, and read the toilet paper itself. When a worker carried it past us, one of my neighbors leaned over and asked, completely straight-faced, “Is that 2-ply?”
We lost it. During a Zelda lot, bids started being called in “rupees,” and our little section got sidetracked discussing whether the winner could exploit the wording by paying in real world rupees. I had briefly tried researching the early lots, but by the time I could determine whether I wanted something, someone else had bought it. Joining the two guys beside me in treating the whole thing as a show was a much better use of the evening. I kept the bidder card as my souvenir and bought nothing.
Back at the Hyatt, I stopped at the bar for a pilsner. John Riggs was at a nearby table, and Tama was moving around the lobby. After a day spent meeting people I’d previously known only through games and videos, I was now just having a drink in the same room as them. The hotel felt like a peculiar little pocket dimension attached to the convention, and I was very happy to be staying in it.
Sunday: What a horrible night to leave PRGE!
By Sunday I knew the place well enough to stop feeling like a new arrival. Even the entrance line had a bonus: I recognized “the Professor” from Tolarian Community College, whose videos I’d watched while getting into Magic: The Gathering, sitting nearby and explaining the game to somebody. Apparently the camera is optional; he just does that.
I picked up boxed copies of Equinox and ClayFighter 2: Judgment Clay for the Super Nintendo, then headed for Gail Tilden’s panel. Gail had quite literally led Pokémon’s introduction to the West for Nintendo of America in the 90s, and I was excited to hear about the work behind something that had occupied a frankly unreasonable proportion of my life.
Historian Frank Cifaldi was interviewing her, and his preparation made a huge difference. Instead of asking broad questions and hoping a good story appeared, he brought out archival material: old planning documents, proposed English names, and period advertisements that gave Gail specific things to react to. The result was probably my favorite panel of the weekend, purely for what I learned.
It was also extremely funny. One commercial featured a bus full of Pokémon being driven into a crushing yard and compacted into a Game Boy. I understand the intended message. All of your favorite creatures fit inside the handheld! Great. But arriving at that message by showing the creatures squirming inside a bus being crushed is an extraordinarily… creative choice.
Frank explained that a longer cut existed with even more of the crushing, jokingly characterized it as “torture porn,” and declined to show it. Then another advertisement produced what appeared to be the same bus-driver actor, and that horrified recognition set the room off again. I had come to learn about Pokémon marketing and was now tracking a recurring perpetrator.
Gail also described the preview VHS campaign, using Nintendo Power subscriber addresses to get the anime into people’s homes and including information about the local channel and time it would air. I loved hearing how much practical work went into making this enormous collection of games, television, and merchandise reach the same audience. Between that and her recollection of skydiving Pikachu performers, the western launch sounded less like a marketing campaign than a coordinated Pokémon incursion.
Better yet, I had brought that exact original promotional VHS for Gail to sign, and she happened to have a sealed copy of the same tape at her table. After the panel, some attendees were asking about its contents, so I offered my opened copy. She lit up, pulled out the inserts, and then took it over to Frank so they could look through it together. Only afterward did she sign the sleeve in gold. An old tape I’d packed as an autograph item had briefly become useful to the people explaining its history. That was an excellent return on my decision to pack it.
Next came a sidequest for my cousin, Joey, who’d bought a ModRetro Chromatic, a device that allows the use of original Game Boy games. He gave me $200, one firm request—Motocross Maniacs—and otherwise wanted good, working cartridges rather than display pieces.
At a booth called Game Genie Retro, I assembled a nice stack that included Pokémon Blue among other classics. The first seller reacted to Blue as though it might bankrupt the operation, then checked prices and admitted he’d overestimated it. The owner, however, had final say and was “away on a smoke break.”
When the owner returned, the smoke break returned with him. This guy reeked of smoke. He pointed out that I’d picked some of his nicest cartridges. I explained that Joey cared more about playing the games than showing them off, so we swapped Blue for a copy with a slightly faded label. The negotiating continued. At one point he told me, “Look bro, I paid fuckin’ fifteen grand to get here.” I sympathized, although I hadn’t realized Joey was sponsoring the booth’s travel expenses.
He came down to $230. I removed Earthworm Jim, which I’d added as an extra, and suddenly we had a deal at exactly $200. Joey got his games, including the vitally important Motocross Maniacs. It occurred to me only afterward that I’d never asked why he wanted that one. Is it even good? I have no idea. I was simply following orders.
My last scheduled event was What a Horrible Night to Have a Panel!, bringing Tom DuBois, Robert Belgrade, and Michael Guinn together for a Castlevania discussion. By then, I’d spent enough time with all three that seeing them onstage together felt like a reunion rather than three names being read off a guest list.
Michael arrived wearing a ridiculous wig. The moderators had questions prepared, but the guests eventually started asking one another questions, to the point that Michael stole something a moderator had been about to ask. Tom grew emotional again, and one interviewer finally told him, “Tom, I love you, but you have to know, you are the Eeyore of this panel.”
I was laughing so hard it hurt. The comparison was affectionate, and after spending the weekend seeing how openly Tom cared about his work, it was also devastatingly well chosen. When the subject of Tom having been a boxer came up, Michael immediately asked, “You mean like, at Kroger’s?” I don’t think there was a more effective joke all weekend.
Near the end, an attendee told Tom they hoped everyone had succeeded in making him feel welcome at his first convention. He reached for his tissues again and answered silently with two thumbs up. Between the jokes, the stories, and that response, I couldn’t have asked for a better final panel.
Afterward, I stepped outside, inhaled some fresh air, and took a few minutes to appreciate the fact that I’d done everything I hoped to do. Then I went back in. There was still time before closing, and for once I had absolutely no reason to hurry toward anything.
A RockBand performance of “War Pigs” stopped me almost immediately. The vocalist was fantastic, the band was locked in, and I sat down to watch what felt much more like an actual show than people playing a rhythm game. Later, I encountered a real llama on a leash and asked its handler for a selfie. The animal casually leaned into the shot like a seasoned influencer. Afterward I noticed the sign identifying him as the “No Drama Llama,” and the llama appeared to have read that brief.
I played more games and pinball, watched the Tetris finals, and eventually sat down as the last few minutes of the convention ticked away. My 3DS had collected 44 StreetPass encounters over the weekend, a very pleasing reminder that the little wireless feature still had a community willing to use it. When closing was announced, I headed out with the crowd and passed the RockBand room one final time. They were playing “Closing Time.” A little on the nose, perhaps, but I appreciated the service.
Heading home
Portland had one more surprise left. My return flight was delayed, and after sitting near a noisy children’s play area at the airport, I decided to walk across the terminal in search of peace and quiet. I had simply needed an excuse to be somewhere else.
Eventually, I noticed what looked like a little theater facade. I assumed it was decorative until I spotted an entrance, went behind the curtain, and discovered an actual cinema. Inside the airport. Proper seats, a screen, a quiet dark room, and a loop of short films by local creators. One was about a Portland video-rental store; another included Carrie Brownstein, which was a nice surprise for the Portlandia fan in me. I’d set out looking for a calm place to sit, and found somewhere I could sit comfortably and watch films until it was time to board. At this point, even the aimless detours were working out!
On the flight home, I was much more moved by the weekend than I’d expected. I was ready to go home, and nothing felt unfinished. But when I thought about what I’d just experienced, it wasn’t the purchases that kept coming to mind. It was standing across from Tom with that ridiculous Prinny in my arms. Connecting Pokéwalkers with Tama. Watching Gail carry my VHS over to Frank. Talking with Daniel and Buddha, the tape sellers, and the guys beside me at the auction.
I love the games, and I’m very happy with what I brought home. But the things that made PRGE special weren’t limited to what somebody had for sale or what a machine could play. The biggest value was in the conversations that started because of those things, with people who understood why you were interested and had something of their own to share. Sometimes that person had helped make a game I’d loved for years. Sometimes he was sitting next to me asking about the quality of Star Fox toilet paper.
The games were a good enough reason to fly to Portland. The people are why I’m so glad I did.
That’s all, dood! o(_ _)o
- Yackson