Exodyus
05-07-2009, 11:47 AM
Ottumwa declares itself 'Video Game Capital of the World'
Dyersville has "Field of Dreams." Madison County has covered bridges.
Ottumwa wants Donkey Kong.
Ottumwa officials officially dubbed their city "Video Game Capital of the World" Wednesday and launched plans for a hall of fame.
The proposed venue will showcase 35 years of video game history, host world-record contests and, city leaders hope, put Ottumwa on the map.
The southeast Iowa city of 26,000 is best known as actor Tom Arnold's hometown.
"We have produced some great folks like Tom Arnold, but the more we can do to brand our community and bring in visitors who will spend money here, the greater of a place it will be," said Terry McNitt, who heads the Ottumwa Area Chamber of Commerce.
The grass-roots effort already has big-time backing.
The gaming world's first golden boy, Billy Mitchell, donated the Donkey Kong machine on which he scored a world record at an Ottumwa arcade in 1982.
Mitchell's feat, which took place during a nationally televised "video game world championship," earned Ottumwa an unofficial, self-bestowed title of Video Game Capital of the World. But well over two decades passed before city leaders believed they could capitalize on it.
Walter Day, a Fairfield businessman who owned the arcade where Mitchell set the record, spent years lobbying for a hall of fame.
Ottumwa leaders finally listened this spring, when a documentary about the 1982 video game contest brought national publicity.
"The claim to fame is there," McNitt said. "We just need to make it happen."
Mitchell said video games could do for Ottumwa what baseball did for Coopers- town, N.Y., home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum.
Early on, "it had to seem like a silly idea to most anybody who heard about it, but it was something that absolutely memorialized Cooperstown," said Mitchell, 43, of Hollywood, Fla. "Ottumwa is on the edge of that."
Ottumwa's video game hall of fame will be like a walk through time, Day said. Visitors will get to pop quarters into old-school Pac-Man arcade machines or try out more sophisticated games, such as Deadspace, on XBox.
"You would be able to go for world records," said Day, who owns Twin Galaxies, the official scorekeeper of video games. "This will become a very, very big vacation destination."
A nonprofit group will operate the hall of fame, McNitt said. A financing plan or venue has not been decided.
"This isn't going to happen overnight, but I do think it's important to get it started," McNitt said.
Day said grant money and private donations could cover startup costs, but the hall of fame would be self-supporting in the long run.
Mark Van Velsor has never picked up a video game controller, but the lifelong Ottumwa resident believes in the plan.
"There's a whole community out there, all the gamers, and they would flock to Ottumwa," said Van Velsor, 43, an Indian Hills Community College instructor. "It would be a nice, interesting thing about Ottumwa."
Lol. Anyone who has ever been to Ottumwa will laugh about this. It's a ho-dunk little down and it's as energetic and full of gamers as this forum is with older people. :/
Lol.
However, Hosting Gaming Competitions sounds like a blast. They've probably seen how much these tournaments make...
Dyersville has "Field of Dreams." Madison County has covered bridges.
Ottumwa wants Donkey Kong.
Ottumwa officials officially dubbed their city "Video Game Capital of the World" Wednesday and launched plans for a hall of fame.
The proposed venue will showcase 35 years of video game history, host world-record contests and, city leaders hope, put Ottumwa on the map.
The southeast Iowa city of 26,000 is best known as actor Tom Arnold's hometown.
"We have produced some great folks like Tom Arnold, but the more we can do to brand our community and bring in visitors who will spend money here, the greater of a place it will be," said Terry McNitt, who heads the Ottumwa Area Chamber of Commerce.
The grass-roots effort already has big-time backing.
The gaming world's first golden boy, Billy Mitchell, donated the Donkey Kong machine on which he scored a world record at an Ottumwa arcade in 1982.
Mitchell's feat, which took place during a nationally televised "video game world championship," earned Ottumwa an unofficial, self-bestowed title of Video Game Capital of the World. But well over two decades passed before city leaders believed they could capitalize on it.
Walter Day, a Fairfield businessman who owned the arcade where Mitchell set the record, spent years lobbying for a hall of fame.
Ottumwa leaders finally listened this spring, when a documentary about the 1982 video game contest brought national publicity.
"The claim to fame is there," McNitt said. "We just need to make it happen."
Mitchell said video games could do for Ottumwa what baseball did for Coopers- town, N.Y., home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum.
Early on, "it had to seem like a silly idea to most anybody who heard about it, but it was something that absolutely memorialized Cooperstown," said Mitchell, 43, of Hollywood, Fla. "Ottumwa is on the edge of that."
Ottumwa's video game hall of fame will be like a walk through time, Day said. Visitors will get to pop quarters into old-school Pac-Man arcade machines or try out more sophisticated games, such as Deadspace, on XBox.
"You would be able to go for world records," said Day, who owns Twin Galaxies, the official scorekeeper of video games. "This will become a very, very big vacation destination."
A nonprofit group will operate the hall of fame, McNitt said. A financing plan or venue has not been decided.
"This isn't going to happen overnight, but I do think it's important to get it started," McNitt said.
Day said grant money and private donations could cover startup costs, but the hall of fame would be self-supporting in the long run.
Mark Van Velsor has never picked up a video game controller, but the lifelong Ottumwa resident believes in the plan.
"There's a whole community out there, all the gamers, and they would flock to Ottumwa," said Van Velsor, 43, an Indian Hills Community College instructor. "It would be a nice, interesting thing about Ottumwa."
Lol. Anyone who has ever been to Ottumwa will laugh about this. It's a ho-dunk little down and it's as energetic and full of gamers as this forum is with older people. :/
Lol.
However, Hosting Gaming Competitions sounds like a blast. They've probably seen how much these tournaments make...