"CLASSIC GAMING: VIRTUAL CHARACTERS STAY RELEVANT WITH FOLLOWING OF NOSTALGIC GAMERS"

Here's a great article from The Carroll County Times, dated November 4, 2011, about TimeLine Arcade and also The Save Point, a place to buy used "old school" game cartridges and consoles.
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Classic gaming: Virtual characters stay relevant with following of nostalgic gamers By Brandon Oland, Times Staff Writer, Carroll County Times
HANOVER, Pa. - Pac-Man keeps popping up.
His yellow face is on a Nintendo Entertainment System cartridge for sale at TownMall of Westminster.
The ghosts he chases are decaled on an arcade room wall at the North Hanover Mall in Hanover, Pa.
In less than three weeks, Black Friday shoppers will cram big box retailers looking for the best door buster discounts on the newest electronics. Yet inside two area malls, enthusiastic new business owners are taking a more old-school approach.
Timeline Arcade in Hanover and The Save Point in Westminster have embraced classic arcade and video games that, until they opened, had all but disappeared from the local retail landscape. Many of the games are from the 1980s and '90s, when Pac-Man chomped up everything in sight, Super Mario saved the Princess, and customers played pinball machines and arcade games for hours at shopping malls.
The Save Point, with arcade games in its lobby, sells cartridges and consoles that are no longer in production. It opened in September.
Timeline Arcade features more than 30 classic arcade and pinball games, most of which are older than the teenagers who come to play them. It opened Tuesday.
Both businesses are owned by nostalgic gamers in their 20s and 30s eager to introduce the games they loved growing up to new generations.
Kat Huffman, Eric Honiker and Roger Voter co-own The Save Point. In a challenging economy, they wanted to control their own destiny, Huffman said. So they turned to their passion for video games of all shapes and sizes.
They don't sell new games, leaving the Wii, PlayStation3 and Xbox 360 market for major mall retailers like GameStop. But they sell used games for systems GameStop no longer offers.
"They send people down here all the time," Huffman said.
Despite new games popping up almost every week, a niche market remains for older games, particularly the Nintendo Entertainment System sold from 1985-95. Used Nintendo consoles retail for $20-$90 on the online auction site eBay.
It's a bit more difficult to find decades-old arcade games, Beverly Spencer said, which was one of the reasons her son was so determined to start his own business.
Timeline owner Brandon Spencer, 32, has spent most of his life playing and restoring pinball machines and arcade games. He wanted to show a new generation how much fun playing multiplayer games can be.
"When you are at an arcade, you are socializing," said Beverly, who watched over the arcade Wednesday while parents played games they used to enjoy with their young children.
Teenagers Mark Mealey, James Balestrini and Zac Coleman made their debut trip to Timeline Arcade Thursday.
They crowded around a "Gauntlet" Atari arcade game and teamed up to quickly advance to Level 8. They were all born one decade after the original "Gauntlet" arcade game debuted in 1983.
Yet there they were for 30 minutes Thursday, rapidly tapping buttons and moving joysticks in the quest to advance to the next level.
"We love these games," Coleman said.
Beverly Spencer said games like "Gauntlet" are becoming increasingly difficult to find. She said just one pinball machine company is left in the United States. Many of the arcade games needed to be restored by her son.
Before new technology takes over, she said her son wanted to showcase addictive games that have mostly disappeared.
"He would always say, ‘Before this is all gone, I want to show new generations how much fun these games can be,'" she said. "So here we are."

 

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